001District's board meeting. We do not have a quorum yet, so as soon as the quorum has arrived, we're going to be able to start. So as of now, it is 6.03, and we are waiting for another board member to attend to have a quorum. And just in case, just to define what a quorum is, our school board consists of seven board members. And in order for a board meeting to have sufficient board members to vote on agenda, we need four board members to be present. And of the four board members, those four board members would have to approve the agenda as is in order for us to begin. Good evening. We have a quorum. There's four board members present. So I call this board meeting to order at 6.05 p.m. on Thursday, July 27, 2023.
002I need an approval of the board agenda. So moved. Second. It has been motioned by Board Member Fowler and seconded by Board Member Rodriguez. Can I get a vote? Aye. Aye. Aye. It has been approved by four board members present and three absent. I just want to friendly remind our board members to please use your microphones when speaking so that votes can be casted accordingly. I would like to move on to item C, Pledge of Allegiance. For which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you very much. We are moving on to public comment for sections E, which is our consent agenda, and section F, which is our community engagement. Our community engagement includes the informational item regarding music program update. For that item, we have a number
003of in-person public comments sheets that have been submitted. There's about 19 sheets. And then we also have a number of voicemails that were submitted. I think we have about four public comments that were submitted by voicemail. So considering that number, I would like to see if any of the board members would like to make a motion as far as public comment in those sections. I'd like to make a motion to extend F, community engagement, public comment for an hour. And point of order, how much time did we give for public comment at our last meeting with all extensions? Do we know? We did the whole it was over an hour and a half of public comment but it did include different topics. Okay. And do we have public comment topics? I just want to make
004sure we're given equal time. I don't want to just for the sake of parity and parity. Do we have extra time needs for other topics? So far the only public comments from voicemails have been on the music and the other topic that we're expecting tonight. And then the other topics, do we have anything else besides those two? Okay. Then I will second the motion for an hour. Thank you. And this is for just the item F, correct? Item F. So item F will have its own public comment under this motion for one hour public comment related to music program. And then item G is the general public comment. So just in order for everyone here to be able to speak, if some of you have less than three minutes to spare so that everyone has
005an opportunity, that will help make sure everybody gets through. So if you can hold from repeating things, that will help everybody be able to make it within that hour. So we have a motion on the table to limit the public comment for item F to one hour. Can I get a roll call, please? Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Four board members present, all voted in support. All right. Can I get a motion to approve the consent agenda? So moved. Second. May I pull one item from the consent agenda? The it wasn't pulled at the time of the approval of the agenda so oh Can we back track you'll oh yeah, say that again. You're right Separate action. I just wanted to pull one item from the consent agenda to discuss. Yeah, okay Which item is that?
006The purchase orders all of them 1 through 24. No, just one which number not sure what number it is, but it's the Tafoya math We pull it up right now the UC Davis Yes, yes, that's the one Which item is it? We're having Lewis Look it up with all due respect for my fellow board members I I appreciate the intent to pull an item But let's be prepared for the future to know exactly what it is that we're trying to pull in advance as we do receive these agendas well ahead of today's board meeting, and just to be mindful and respectful of each other's time and commitment to this board. Does she need a second for the pooling of the item? Yes, she would need a second. Okay, I'm not seconding. Anybody else want a
007second? I'll second. All right, do you have some questions? Yes, my question was with respect to that item The the board is approving Work by UC Davis at Tafoya Elementary to improve their math scores and I'm just curious if staff has Identified what what success for that program would look like So I don't have a Danielle sharp here or the principal here But I'll definitely report back to the board through a Friday update with a report back on how they're intending to measure Outcomes for that that particular program that UC Davis math project It I think the second year they're working with this math project And so definitely we can one one thing that we can look at definitely is our our math scores state math scores and some of our internal units But I'll
008ask if there's any other measures from our our staff and get back to the board. Thank you That's all can I get a motion to approve the consent agenda, please? So moved Second, it's been moved by a board member Fowler and seconded by board member Rodriguez to approve the consent agenda as is Can I get a roll call vote, please? Aye. Aye. Aye. It has been voted in favor by the four board members present and three absent. We are moving on to the next item on the agenda, which is F, community engagement. And this is an item of information only. No action can be taken related to music programs. Superintendent. Yes, so we have several public comments. So we'll start with the public comments We have four voicemails and 19 in person and we have
009one hour for public comment So if as soon as the first person starts, we'll start timing for the hour Do you want to start with the in-person or voicemail first? Sure Let's go ahead and rotate in person to voicemail Okay, just so that we could be fair in the one hour that's been allotted and then if Andy Sullivan can come up please and if you can please call the next four people up so they're waiting and that way we do not go over protects the one hour time Andy Sullivan, Alex Trotter, Matthew Loya, Steven Loya, and Brian Ujena Perez. Push on the mic, please. Can we start his time over, please? Thank you. My name is Andy Sullivan. I'm a parent of a recently graduated Woodland High School band member and a member of the
010Woodland High School Music Boosters. I'm quite concerned about the status of the secondary music programs here in Woodland. I have never heard of a situation where every band and choir teacher at the secondary level have left their job within the one-year period. To me, that's a shocking development. Your July 7 letter to the community gave general platitudes as to why teachers change positions. If this was one or two teachers, okay. But what are the odds that four teachers in the same discipline all found reasons like better, quote, retirement, housing opportunities, better pay, and other professional growth opportunities, unquote, at the same time? As you said in that letter, quote, it's not uncommon for teachers to leave for other opportunities, unquote. But all of them at the same time? Four leaving at the same time is
011more than a coincidence. The fact that two of these teachers were products of Woodland Unified who came back home to teach in their own communities with their family and friends and are now leaving leads one to think that the music program in Woodland is anything but thriving. Where there's smoke there's fire and I know this is not standard operating procedure But considering that all of your teachers left at the same time have you reached out to conduct exit interviews to find out why these people all left if You're not willing to find out why these people are making a decision to leave woodland unified How do you propose growing and strengthening the music programs for our students in your letter dated July 7th? You stated some things that you were doing to support music education
012in the district you increased funding, but you didn't elaborate You spent money But half a million dollars of that went to the mariachi program reaching 78 students. Your other music programs reaching 1,456 students got about 2,000 per site. 2,000 per site might purchase three beginner level instruments. The students at Woodland and Pioneer need higher level instruments and equipment to match their skill level. You stated that you purchased equipment, but the equipment was purchased for mariachi and not for the other programs. What has not been discussed recently is what happened at Lee Middle School last year. Lee went into the year without a music teacher. And if it were not for the efforts of Mr. Rogers and Mr. Deloya, no teacher was going to be there for the concert band classes, taking a hammer not only
013to the program at Lee, but to Woodland High's music program as well. Considering all these facts, I don't blame any of the teachers for moving on from Woodland Unified. If this was a football coach, if every football coach across the district resigned at the same time, you'd be scratching your heads. We've gotten absolutely no interest or inkling that you're interested in this process. Your next steps needs to be convening a meeting between the district, the middle school music boosters, the music boosters at Woodland and Pioneer, and any other stakeholder where you discuss how you're going to grow the department and make sure that our students are not going to go through this rotating door of directors again. Our students and our music teachers deserve to be treated with that level of respect. Sir, your time
014has ended. I just was finishing my talk. Let's continue to the voicemail, please. Hello, I'm leaving this message for public comment. My name is Valerie Robles and I'm an incoming junior attending Woodland High School. I wanted to start off by saying I entered this high school music program much like the rest of us, excited and hearing such positive things about this teacher and its culture. But now I'm just scared for the entirety of the WJUSD's music education. Not just one teacher has been lost, but four. In addition, you've made the mistake of letting go of a dedicated mariachi teacher, Mr. Acosta of Pioneer. Every Woodland High and Douglas Music student can vouch for how much time Mr. Loy and Mr. Coelho have put into saving this music program. They have worked countless hours after school
015inspiring, planning, and stressing over things that are the passion in their hearts and love towards their students. They did the things that our district should have helped with or better yet should have been responsible for. It hurts to see the teachers I look up to leave our district because they didn't get the respect that they deserved. It's extremely heartbreaking to see the number of incoming music students decreasing every year. It's extremely disappointing to see our district not do anything about it, no matter how much our teachers have argued. From the way you mistreat our orchestra and band camp counselors, to the way you spend all your fundings on mariachi rather than helping our entire arts department, you all have endlessly shown how much you do not care about the future of music and its students.
016I am completely aware of Proposition 28 being set in place, but my question is, why didn't you guys do anything sooner? How is it equitable that Mariachi gets a funding of half a million dollars while the rest of our entire music department has to share around 70,000? Mariachi got funded for all their brand new expensive uniforms while our wind ensemble has to depend on music booster money and the rest of our music classes don't get a uniform at all. This district does not hesitate to provide help with any other department or extracurricular. It's unfair how you guys do not see the value in our teachers. More and more people are quitting music because of this situation. It's upsetting how dedicated students, including myself, are feeling the overwhelming burden of having to save this music program.
017That shouldn't be our job. It should be yours. The Woodland High Band Room was my safe space. It was the place where I met my most amazing friends, and it feels like that's being taken away. From what I heard from our community, the new hires for Lee and Pioneer are questionable and are not at the same level as our former teachers that cared. The way I spent years building our community together, and it's falling apart. Most of us wouldn't be here or be devastated at Band and Orchestra Camp if we didn't care about the program and its teachers. after keeping all of this in mind i'd request these few things this district should hire a licensed music professional and on the hiring process of new music teachers whs should receive the same treatment as pioneer
018where they got a new teacher instantly i also urge you to acknowledge disrespect and mistreatment that you have shown our staff and students and put more care into our arts department before it crumbles entirely all right next public comment Before we start the public comment, I just want to remind you that when you when you clap and you celebrate the public comment, it takes away that from the hour. OK, so I want as many of you to get through this. All right. Go ahead. Hi, my name is Alex Trotter. I am a teacher at Woodland High School and alumni of Woodland High School. And I'm also the incoming. president of the Woodland High School Music Boosters. As a boosters, we really try and support all of our students in just having an enriching music department
019and going into this next school year, not having anyone and not knowing what that will look like is definitely frightening, not only for us, but for our students. And I'm going to keep it really, really short because I think that you all should hear from our students because they are the ones that this is impacting every single day. Thank you. Voicemail, please. Hi, I'm leaving a message for public comment. My name is Gabriella and I am calling in support of the music department. There is a lack of respect and care for the music programs in this district and their teachers. It is not a coincidence with Mr. Mascio, the lead music teacher leaving last year, now Mr. Loya and Mr. Coelho this year. And on top of that, a theater teacher and an art teacher
020who left halfway through the year. These were all teachers who stay here on weekends and hours after the school day, unpaid, purely for the benefit of their students. They should not be pressured to resign. There should not be dozens of students crying in the middle of band camp because their favorite teachers have all been pressured to resign because of the unjust treatment they have received from the district. These are big shoes to fill. These are teachers that did lots of work that went unrecognized. With Ms. Amasio leaving Lee the last year, many students left the program along with her. There were already few Lee music students who were going to be incoming freshmen at Woodland High, but with Mr. Loya leaving, students will continue to quit with no motivation from the district to stay. Because
021of the lack of care from the district, many music-centered students are even considering leaving Woodland High because they doubt a capable teacher or even a teacher at all will be hired. I don't know how the district can claim in their message that the music program will continue to thrive when it was already struggling to thrive. In the same message, the district claimed to have bought new instruments and equipment for elementary, middle, and high schools. Meanwhile, Woodland High School's choir has been performing on broken risers for many years now, which are important to good performance. Mr. Loya was a teacher that would make meetings with students for hours every year to recruit and to maintain numbers. He would offer constant support and accommodations to students just to get them to stay in music because he knew
022of all the benefits that it provided them, like making them very favorable to colleges. Now things like the musical at Woodland High, which Mr. Loya worked on unpaid, directing music and pit orchestra, two successful extracurriculars are at risk because of the lack of a teacher. The band camp coaches were also communicated with in a very unprofessional manner. The process of being cleared through the district can be somewhat difficult, and that process was not started for the coaches until after band camp already began. it being only four weeks too. So many students struggled to complete this process or were unable to because of things like not having a license. So they ended up not being paid for all the work they did. There was also one day during band camp that Mr. Coelho, the conductor, received
023a call from someone at the district who told us suddenly that some of the coaches were not allowed to be there after weeks of us already being there because we were not cleared, even though the process had been started late for us. It's devastating to be told to leave when you're only there to help kids learn music. The whole issue could have been avoided if there was proper communication to the coaches and the process just began earlier. This is just one example of the district not putting attention towards music. Now, unfortunately, we have lost very valuable educators. Even though I already graduated, the music program is something I know is so important that I can't sit by and see it fall apart without saying something. Thank you. Hello, my name is Matthew Loya and I
024have a letter to read. Hello Superintendent, Board of Trustees, District Reps, and teachers and families. I wanted to give an important insight that will help support the future of our music program and my experience in the past 11 years as a music teacher, as well as four years as a music student at Woodland High School. Number one, structure. Please work efficiently to restructure our elementary school music program. It is a state law that we are not and have not been following. Every student is supposed to be taught music education every day as a core subject during all grades K through six. This means that before reaching the middle school grades, all students should have six years of music instruction and knowledge of basic music fundamentals. Essentially, every seventh grader should know how to read music.
025To fix this, we need either a dedicated rotating general music teacher at every elementary site, or music needs to be structured as a part of the instruction. instructional school day in elementary just like PE. All students get the opportunity to grow in music and we have the funding with the new state grant. towards VAPA, that a portion can be allotted to set the framework of this in place, and it should be number one priority. In the long run, it will give all music programs, including mariachi, more success. As a former music teacher, it hurts me to say, but it should be noted that Woodlands music program structure is actually blacklisted by collegiate music education programs, music education counselors, and the music community in the greater Sacramento area. People are actually being advised by experts in
026these areas to not apply here in this district because it does not structure. our elementary music programs well. We have to fix this for our students and any incoming music professionals. Please acknowledge this point, accept it, come together, and work to fix it as soon as possible. Number two, funding. Funds have not been allocated in an equitable way throughout the music programs in this district, nor have course offerings been offered and funded in an equitable way. There was new funding available to our music programs post-mortem learning. Half a million was set aside to the Vivaldi and Macchiati programs, and it was excessive considering all the other needs of the existing music programs. When we expressed frustration as a music community of teachers, only $70,000 was granted and left to every other music program in the
027entire district. When divided among all other music... K through 12, it averages around 2,000 each course. However, this cannot support the smallest of needs for after-mention programs. It is inequitable to give half a million to one new and developing program while giving 2,000 to all other existing music programs. This amount is not enough to sustain what is in place. The division of money was not equitable and not fair to every teacher in the district who has dedicated so much time and expertise to develop and sustain programs that have been around for years, especially during and post-remote learning. Number three is growth. After 11 years of trying to shape a music program in this community, it was hurt to see cuts in a growing program when it was thriving with new and added numbers of students
028who were interested in taking more music courses. It was hurtful to have AP music theory cut when I increased numbers every year from my initial hire at WHS in 2012. It's hurtful to be told WHS could have its own string orchestra course after four years to draw in and retain students from Lee, but then find out these students were placed in a combined band and orchestra class. And later the district of Laudamattia should have classes regardless of numbers. To be continued. Thank you voicemail, please We cannot make it in person I'm calling to speak about both trustee Emily McDonald and the recent events regarding our music program To somewhat remind you what I said at the last minute move to Woodland and began attending Woodland High School in 2013 like how all throughout human history
029we have acknowledged more than two genders that there are twice as many trans people in America than police officers and that transgender teens are eight times more likely to have attempted suicide. One conclusion I had to cut out of my review comment for the sake of time was that before moving here at 15 I had already attempted suicide three times with a plan to try again I did not go to a school that was a safe space for who I was. I went to a private Catholic school in Fresno. In fourth and fifth grade, my school had signs all around saying their position on Prop 8. I, at 10 years old, knew that I was not straight and was questioning my gender and that that part of me was not okay with my school as
030well as with my parents. My peers caught on well by this point, calling me derogatory terms and excluding me from using the restroom while any other girl was in there because obviously I was up to make the other girls gay. About a month before I was supposed to start sixth grade was my first suicide attempt. I was 11 years old. I didn't tell anyone what I had done because that meant coming out. I continued to suffer in silence and felt unable to ask for help. We moved here in August 2013 to help my grandma who had dementia. I had a plan that on December 30th, I was going to walk to the little axis of Cash Creek off my grandma's farm and make it seem like I had accidentally drowned. This would have been my
031fourth attempt. In those four months, I found a place I could be. and that was in Mr. Loya's music room. This was a place where students could be themselves and work toward a common goal of making amazing music because that is what we wanted to do. If you were not in the music program, you were still welcome as long as you were being respectful to those around you. If it were not for the inclusivity and accepting environment of Mr. Loya's band room and the friends I made there, I would not be here. All it took was four months after I'd moved to see that I could be accepted as me. I listened to the meeting where Emily McDonald made her statement and before that statement, the rest of the board was discussing the need for
032more safe spaces. The arts are our safe space. Invest in those spaces you already have. Music and other performing arts programs are where students like me feel accepted. It's a space where students who may or may not be LGBT come together, coexist, and create amazing performances and pieces of art that they worked on. Mr. Loya would give us the space to do that within his music room while sacrificing his own time because much of this time was during lunch and after school where he wasn't being paid. The time he dedicated to the program allowed the program to thrive and for the students to be sufficient in creating their own concerts every year. which he also wasn't paid for. Adults like Emily McDonald made me feel lonely at 11. Adults like Emily McDonald made me feel
033worthless at 13. Adults like Emily McDonald made me feel numb and empty at 14 years old. At 15 years old, I felt so broken after years of being surrounded by adults like Emily McDonald and Best Born and Moms for Liberty. It took four months for an adult like Mr. Loya and some of my other teachers to show me that I do have value and worth. I'm going to use that strength they taught me to say, Emily McDonald, resign, because you don't even want to be here. the rest of the board invest in our performing arts and music programs. You say you want to create safe spaces for LGBTQ students. That's where we created them already. My name is Catherine. Go ahead, sir. Hi, my name is Steven Loya. I'm the current president of the Woodland
034High School Music Boosters, and I'll be continuing the previous letter. Number four, professionalism and respect. I would like to add that my music education and credentials as a music educator were valuable assets when the district needed to hire new teachers for the music programs, but I was not able to be a part of helping with these opportunities. It was hurtful and disrespectful to not be involved in the Lee Middle School hire in any way before Eric Berger, Selena Del Masio, and before the most recent hire this year. Whenever a hire wasn't found I was not included in the process of what to do and courses for my feeder were cut therefore jeopardizing my FTE. It's clear mariachi is something our board wants and as a proud Hispanic alumni and educator I am in support. But
035when approached in a forced non equitable way with the clear agenda to make it happen above all else you effectively began to crush the very foundations that allowed the opportunity to happen in the first place. Support your music teachers by deferring to their expertise. Support all cultures and aspects of music equally from mariachi to classical orchestra to jazz to bands to choir. They are all equally valuable opportunities for our kids. Music in Woodland has so much opportunity to learn and grow. Contrary to the district's message sent earlier, it's not a thriving community. Thriving communities don't have a turnover of all secondary teachers needing new hires in one year regardless of reasoning. Thriving communities don't cut some programs while supporting others to meet the needs of their own wants, agendas, and projects. Thriving music communities don't
036have inequitable funding with no direct communication with teachers as experts for fair allocation. A thriving community would not only have two incoming students coming into Woodland High School's music program this fall after 26 seniors graduated from the music program this past year. A thriving community would not be blacklisted by colleges and other district music programs as a place to avoid applying. And frankly, a thriving community would have never lost me because Woodland High School is my whole heart and I love this place. But I had to make such a hard decision to leave. There is so much work to do and I hope the Woodland community will reach out to the experts and the truly thriving music community. in the greater Sacramento area to help properly shape the program from the bottom up. On a
037personal rapport with teachers and respecting their expertise, in my time at Woodland High School, I was never once asked for my direct expertise on structure music programs or helping them grow. I was never once asked to be a part of the interview panel. Through the long process of finding a lead teacher, I was never talked with directly about supporting in any way or helping. Upon leaving Woodland High School, I was never asked to have an in-person closing interview for my thoughts on exactly why I was leaving, what next steps I could recommend, if any, to support. I was never asked if I'd be willing to help support the transition of a new teacher moving the position at Woodland High School. Ultimately, I feel like I had so much expertise to offer, but I was not
038part of the bigger picture to have my expertise as part of mapping out the pathway forward. I want to note that I do not think this was intentional disrespect, but certainly a huge inexcusable oversight. In the future, know your employees, their tenure, their assets, and what they have to offer. I am 100% certain that if I had been directly involved in supporting the lead teacher situation, there is no way we would only have two students carrying over to Woodland High School. I wish nothing but the best for my district I grew up in. Signed, Michael Loya, former teacher of Woodland High School. Hi, thank you for taking my comment. My name is Jennifer Bruns, and I have a junior student at Woodland High School. And I'm just calling because I was concerned about the music
039program. My student has not had the opportunity to take music yet, and she was counting on a course for this oncoming school year. As far as we can tell, that course has now been canceled, which leaves her with an empty period and not much to fill. Additionally, I just would like to voice my concern over the teacher turnover versus music and the school district. And I think that it's something that really needs to be looked at and we need to lean into the conversation. I understand normal turnover. I've been in HR and managing people across several different areas for years. But when you have turnover of one specific area, this being music, across a multitude of units or different schools, with different leadership that's a lot to be concerned about and i think that i'm
040hoping that the hr department at woodland joint unified schools district along with the leadership of the board would really lean into this get good feedback from the teachers and figure out why they might be leaving thank you very much go ahead Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Brian Osconaga-Perez. I am an incoming freshman at Pioneer High School, and I have been playing trumpet for two years now, and I am very proud to say that I wouldn't be the person I am today if it wasn't for Mr. Coelho and Mr. Acosta. At a young age, I realized that I really loved music. At some point, I started learning how to dance to the music, but once I got into middle school, my whole life changed. Growing up in a Mexican household, I grew up
041listening to many Mexican artists like Vicente Fernandez, Mariachi Vargas de Tecaticlan, Pepe Aguilar, Natalia Jimenez, Lucha Villa, and etc. Some of you guys may see a resemblance in all these artists, and yes, they are all mariachi artists. But today I am not here to talk about where I started listening to music or when I started listening to music, but it's when I started making the music. So now let me tell you about how a man of many words influenced my life. It was September 2021. I was outside the band building after school with Mr. Acosta practicing how to play the trumpet. We were both trying to play el rey, but when I was outside playing the first measure of el rey, I saw somebody coming out of the ballroom, and you guessed it already. It
042was Mr. Coelho. He stood there out of the band room for a moment, and then he told me, hey, you're really good for someone who just started playing that instrument. I responded to him, thank you. What's your name again? Again, he responded to me, my name is Mr. Coelho. You should consider joining my band. At that point, I asked him, really? But I already have mariachi. He told me, no worries. You can take my zero period class. I said, hmm, I'll think about it. The next day I went to my counselor to ask if she could put me in Mr. Coelho's European band class. And from that day on, I became what we call a band kid. I wasn't the best player in my 7th grade year, but once I got into my 8th grade
043year, I was incredible. I had told Mr. Coelho about starting my DJ business, and next thing you know, I was Mr. Coelho's personal sound guy for all his choir concerts. If you guys have ever been to the Douglas Middle School choir concerts, you might have seen speakers, cables, and a lot of microphones. Yes, that was all me right there, the kid in the back with a table and a mixer. And from that day on, I thank Mr. Coelho who brought me out of my comfort zone and helped me overcome my fears of beginning in public environments. Not many teachers give opportunities to their students like Mr. Coelho does. I mean, for instance, what kind of teacher helps you fundraise $150,000 in a short period of time to take their students to Disneyland and perform on
044a Disney stage? Not a lot. Not only was Mr. Coelho a music teacher, but he was family to me and many others. And once I heard the news that Mr. Coelho had quit with other teachers, I was not only devastated, but I was really angry. But then I started realizing that that wasn't the only thing that had gotten me mad, but it actually had gotten many people mad. What also had caught me off guard was that I heard that Mr. Acosta, the same person who brought in the mariachi into the Woodland Joint Unified School District, was not going to... Five seconds. was not going to be our mariachi instructor at woodland at pioneer high thank you voicemail please i'll call up the next five hector lopez christina gonzalez miguel gonzalez anna sophia callens emily tang
045do you want me to put you at the end sure no more voicemails muddy all right go ahead and please come up Good afternoon. My name is Ektolepe and I'm here today to share my thoughts and feelings about our teachers and students. Over time, our students have made a bond with our teachers and without our teachers, our students might run into problems with our learning. I also feel that our teachers have made it not only easier to learn music, but also fun to learn. Unfortunately, my brother could not be here to speak, but he would like to say I would like to keep Mr. Coelho as a teacher. He's the best of the best. I would like to thank my teacher, Mr. Acosta, for teaching me and my friends during our music experience. I was
046not even interested in mariachi until the summer camp of 2022. He inspired me to learn more, and when school started, I decided to switch my elective to mariachi. I have learned a whole lot during my year in mariachi and would definitely like to continue. Thank you. Thank you. Next. Hello, my name is Miguel Gonzalez, a former student at Douglas and a soon-to-be freshman at Pioneer High School. I'm a student that loves music, more specifically mariachi and orchestra, and I play various instruments in those programs. Hearing the news about Mr. Aquilio's resignation was heartbreaking, as was the news about Mr. Acosta's removal from Pioneer, not just to me, but to many other students and parents. A lot of us disagree with the decision. with the decisions that were made and are very upset because a lot
047of us had plans with these teachers and the teachers had plans with these students. Now I know you removed Mr. Costa from Pioneer because of these mariachis downfall, but if you guys are trying to get more teachers to learn about mariachi, it is not a good sign that teachers are leaving this district. As for example, kids aren't joining mariachi next year at Pioneer because of Mr. Costa's removal and because it's not gonna be a zero period next year. and kids aren't going to be joining music in Douglas next year either because of Mr. Aquilio's resignation. Music is an important thing, part of kids' life, and deserves to be treated as an important subject, such as math, English, and et cetera. Multiple teachers leaving this district at the same time is not a good sign for
048the music programs and the district itself. These teachers are a great part of this district and deserve to be fought for. There is a reason why these teachers got accepted so fast in other districts. It is because they are seeing something in these teachers that you guys are missing. All I'm saying is you guys have the power to end this with a good or bad ending. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Next. Good evening members of the board. My name is Anna Callens and I'm an incoming freshman at Pioneer High School. I play violin and mariachi and have also played in orchestra. As students, we like going to classes with teachers we love because it makes that subject more engaging and enjoyable. And, as you know, our schools have recently lost a few wonderful
049teachers in such a short amount of time. This reflects poorly on our district for allowing such extraordinary teachers and mentors to easily slip away. For instance, finding out that Mr. Acosta was not teaching us at Pioneer this upcoming year was shocking to many of my fellow classmates. Many are frustrated with how things happened because it was very sudden, and I'm also let down by this news as I was looking forward to being able to further my music experience with him as my teacher in high school. To continue, hearing the alleged news that without Mr. Acosta teaching mariachi next year, we won't be able to have a zero period was deeply disappointing. One of the main reasons I decided to join, besides the fact I love music, is that I knew it would be a zero
050period. By potentially taking away it as a zero period, you're taking away an amazing opportunity for the music students. I believe that another reason why this decision was so disappointing was because it happened very quickly without warning. Although you can't change the past, the district has the power to make the right decisions for our future, such as keeping passionate teachers who know our students and district well. Us students would like you to please reconsider your decision about Mr. Acosta and allow him to teach us with a zero period this year at Pioneer. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Next. My name is Emily Tang and I'm an incoming freshman at Pioneer High School. During the Douglas Music Department's Disneyland trip, I was able to watch another middle school's symphony orchestra perform and they were
051amazing. Their teacher spoke about how he was so grateful for the opportunity to play at Disneyland, but how he was even more grateful for the support of his fellow music teachers and his school district to be able to get there. That is what this district needs. We need support from fellow music teachers, but even more we need Report from this district to be able to change. It's a very important difference between us and that other middle school Instead of everyone acting separately from the district and their fellow music teachers their teacher and district all Cooperated to achieve a common goal now that we have so many new music teachers in the music program It's a perfect opportunity to improve this music department What we need now more than ever is for our new teachers to
052work together with the district and the remaining teachers to build the music program back up better than it had been before. Douglas Middle School and Woodland High School both had a huge loss when our beloved music teachers left. They were both great music teachers who were loved by their students. Those same students were hope broken when they learned Mr. Coelho and Mr. Loyal were leaving. I don't ever want this to happen again to anyone, so we need to restore the music department so no more teachers want to leave. You can say that teachers come and go and that may be fine for you, but it's a huge deal to students when teachers they love leave. Good teachers like Mr. Loyal and Mr. Coelho leave an impact on the students. So when teachers are being cycled
053in and out, it can negatively affect students. It's unfair that good teachers are leaving because they don't feel respected enough. It's unfair that classrooms full of students were crying because our teachers were leaving. It's unfair that future music students are being affected by the way this is being run. And it's unfair that nothing is being done to fix this. So it's up to all of us, students, teachers, parents, district and board members to do something. Thank you. Thank you. Marie, can you call the next five? I'll call up the next five. Jillian Tang, Jenny Tang, Debbie Decker, Samantha Jackson, and Jen Wang. Marie, can you give the heads up to the next five? Then Alexa Esparza, Juan Esparza, Elvira Raya, Ruby Ramirez, and Sireño Rodriguez. To those five that were just called last, if you
054can start making your way as you see this line shortened. Thank you. Go ahead. Good evening. My name is Jillian Tang, and I'm a former orchestra student at Douglas Middle School, and I'm an incoming freshman at Pioneer. Mr. Coelho, Mr. Loy at resigning back to back was devastating. I wish I were exaggerating when I say that an entire class of band kids cried over this news and we cried for a while. Additionally, within the last two years, Ms. Stone, Mr. Peek, Mr. Timothy, Mr. Rogers and Ms. Dalmasio also left and those are the only ones that I know of. Why are so many teachers quitting? What do you think these frequent job postings say about WJUSD? But more importantly, why isn't anything been done? Are these teachers disposable? Then why are they being treated as
055such? The impact teachers have on students will last lifetimes. Students enroll in specific classes to be with teachers they love and teachers like Mr. C and Mr. Loya developed their students to their fullest potential. They loved their students. It was evident. So like many other enthusiastic teachers they put tons of thought and effort into planning exciting and enriching lessons. Therefore happier teachers led to more engaged students. Isn't that what we should be aiming for? But what does this district offer that makes teachers even want to stay? Whatever it is it hasn't been reflected by the numerous resignations. Teachers deserve more respect than they currently receive. Because of the carelessness and negligence of the district, teachers have struggled, and us students, and perhaps the entire community, have lost our beloved teachers. Furthermore, the district has failed
056to recognize how rare good teachers are. They're the ones who should be valued and appreciated the most, but the teachers here were driven away by the staff who should have helped them help students. It's difficult not to beg them to come back. They left on their own accord, but I wish them nothing but happiness and success at their new schools. However, a magnificent U.S. teacher once explained that those who fail to learn from history are doomed. to repeat it. So to conclude, I ask for two things. For teachers to be treated with more respect and consideration by district staff and for the district to understand the importance of keeping great teachers here with us. This way excellent teachers won't continue to check in and out. I hope these suggestions will improve how teachers are viewed
057and treated and perhaps a few classrooms can be spared from being flooded with tears. Thank you. Thank you. Please state your name for the record. My name is Jenny Tang I'm a parent of these two entering high school students and and also a young elementary student I'm frequently asked why I don't send my kids to school in Davis But I've always been confident in saying we have great teachers here and they're gonna get a good education But it's been difficult to say that lately I'm fortunate that my kids have done well. They've discovered a love for music here. It's a highlight of their middle school experience. And a reason was their teacher, Mr. Coelho. They had Mr. Loya during summer camp and loved him there as well. Mr. C and Mr. Loya are teachers. They
058have deep roots in the community and vested interest in supporting music and students in this town. They were constantly working to strengthen the music program because they know how valuable music is to students. And I know they would have loved to retire here, but both have sadly resigned. The sad and alarming fact is that four secondary music teachers have resigned in less than two years. It's well documented the positive benefits music and art have on children and learning. And with the demographic of low income students in this district, WJSD must recognize its role as a primary institution to provide music exposure and experience to students that can't access private lessons and purchase instruments. The resignations of Mr. C and Mr. Loya are tremendous loss, not only because they're music teachers, but because they are amazing
059teachers. They gave their all and then some. Students arranged their schedules to be able to take their classes, happily waking up for zero periods or 8 a.m. camps during their summer breaks. These are the kind of teachers we want teaching in this district. In our current climate of teacher shortages, we cannot be so casual about teachers leaving because let's be honest, turnover is high and people are not lining up to be teachers. As a concerned parent and community member, I implore you to take action. Please acknowledge that the music program here is not thriving. If you give us more time, there are many people here that can share more specific concerns and details as to how support for the music program has fallen short historically. Please recognize that there is also a problem with teacher
060retention that lies deeper than just the music program. Please investigate why teachers resign and the district's role in its failure to retain valuable staff. Please make it your mission to provide a healthy environment for our teachers to feel valued and supported so that ultimately our students can thrive. At the end of the day, we're here as a community and you're here as district administrators and elected officials to support the students. Thank you. Thank you. Next, please state your name for the record. Trustees, Superintendent Lampkin and Cabinet, staff, students, and community, I'm Debbie Decker, past president, former member of the WJUSD School Board, and a proud band mom. I'm dismayed and deeply concerned about the hollowing out of our stellar music program. Not only does music provide many academic benefits, but the performing arts provides a
061safe space for the nonconformist, the quirky, the excluded. Many program alumni will tell you that the only place they felt they belonged was in the music room. The only friends they had were in band. As we experienced at the last board meeting and again tonight, LGBTQ plus students need and deserve safe spaces to be and to express themselves authentically and creatively. Alumni of this district's program have gone on to successful careers as professional musicians, staff members in world-class orchestras, small business owners in the music industry, and music educators. Two of the teachers who recently resigned, Mr. Loya and Mr. Rogers, were alumni of this district's music program. My grandson will be in the fifth grade in a few weeks. He's very excited to be able to be in the band. My grandson and all the
062fifth graders out there deserve to have a stable and reasonable trajectory into high school and a middle school music. Four resignations in two years is extremely alarming, must be addressed. Not just the critical staffing issue, but the systemic conditions in the district that would cause these talented and successful educators to leave. I respectfully ask the board to direct staff to determine these systemic issues and to develop and implement a mitigation plan to go forward. Our students and our community deserve nothing less. Thank you. Thank you. Next person, state your name for the record, please. Good evening. My name is Samantha Jackson and I am a music student in this district. When I heard the news about the resignation of two beloved teachers, I felt very lost. Part of me was sorry to see them go.
063Part of me was focused on comforting others. But most of me was just scared and anxious. One of the main reasons I felt even remotely confident in my capabilities with music was because of Mr. C. Teachers have always been a huge part of my success, and to see so many good teachers leave the district brings up many questions. What is causing all these teachers to want to leave, and why isn't the district fighting to keep these amazing teachers here? I don't want to make assumptions about the district and its priorities, but everyone... But everything that I see happening points to teachers being treated with less respect than they should be. In classes like math or English, it is shown by teachers struggling with getting the supplies they need to create a fun and engaging lesson
064solely because they are not given the money to do so. In music, however, it is shown differently. Music is something that requires a lot of effort, not only with learning music, but working to blend with classmates and assist others when they need help. It requires a lot of connection between students and teachers for it to truly flourish. but the teacher can ultimately make or break a student's relationship with school just by how they act. Teachers who actively participate help create the environment needed to make good music, whereas teachers who sit back and don't really try to make the class exciting end up creating a very dull and boring class dynamic that causes most students to struggle with their instrument of choice. The work environment that these teachers are placed in can cause them to come
065to school with significantly less enthusiasm than, and inevitably, affect a student's chance of success. All I truly want is for teachers to be given the respect they deserve, both for their well-being and the students. I hope you consider what other music students and I are saying. Thank you. Next person, state your name for the record, please. Hello, my name is Jing Wang, and I'm an incoming freshman at Pioneer this year. I've been playing the violin. four or five years for the district. I'm speaking today regarding the issue of Mr. Acosta moving to Woodland High. I was going to take Mariachi Zero period this year at Pioneer, and to my knowledge, if Mr. Acosta doesn't teach the Mariachi program, there will not be a Mariachi Zero period. I feel upset and a bit disappointed that this
066information was not presented to me firsthand by the district. This lack of transparency is frustrating because I'm a student that is directly impacted by this decision that I wasn't even aware was happening. I hope that the district will be more transparent and mindful about its actions. moving forward. Thank you. Next person, state your name for the record. Good evening. My name is Alexia Esparza and I am currently a member of the WJUSD music program. I am here today to address the drastic changes to our program that have had a negative impact on the students, parents, and staff who were affected. Recently, our school district has lost four music teachers, including Mr. Loya and Mr. Coelho, two well-known and respected teachers who were widely admired and loved by countless students. Although one of the four teachers
067left for a better opportunity, neither Mr. Coelho nor Mr. Loya wished to leave. Their toxic working environment and lack of support has driven them away from our community. The district has made it too difficult for them to stay. I am certain that I speak for many when I say that this is a grave loss to not only lose teachers that strengthen our minds, but who also touched our souls. Likewise, Mr. Acosta, director and original founder of the Mariachi program has faced similar challenges and absence of proper communication and support from our district. With little to no warning, WJUSD staff has decided to move Mr. Acosta to Lee Middle School from Pioneer High School, the school that would have had one of the strongest mariachi groups in the district this coming year, so that he would
068be able to rebuild the shaky program at Lee. This has left pioneer students with the teacher they feel is not the best fit for them and will not bring out the best in them as well as Mr. Acosta already has. While the intent of this change is well-meaning, the execution was done poorly, so much so that Mr. Acosta himself was unaware of this change until the very end of last school year. Mr. Acosta is the original mariachi director. Therefore, he must be included in discussions of any big changes like this. Instead, he was just told about the plans already made for him after it had already been established that a new teacher would take over the Mariachi program at Pioneer. Neither parents, students nor the director himself had a chance to voice their opinions while
069this decision was being made. Although these damaging events have already happened, it is not too late to take action in order to prevent things like this from happening again in the future. This is why I ask that the district make a conscious and concentrated effort to ensure that teachers are treated with the respect they deserve as well as continuously making an effort to establish direct communication with teachers so that you know when something is wrong. And finally, I ask that you work together with WJUSD staff and community members alike to figure out problems like the ones the music program is facing and how to solve them. Even though some of our best music teachers have left, it is still our responsibility to make the environment more welcoming so that this loss does not repeat itself.
070This is why I ask the district and the board takes a close look in the situation Mr. Acosta currently faces because mariachi students deserve equity and access to experienced teachers that are well-suited to their learning needs. To summarize, there are many events and some facts that show us the struggles our beloved teachers face within the district. The fact that some of these teachers were forced to leave because of hostile environments is deeply concerning. and should drive us to create more welcoming and supportive environment for these teachers. Due to this, there is much work to be done to make sure that similar situations don't happen again. Our community is willing to put in the work to achieve this mission, if you can meet us halfway. Thank you. Thank you. Next public comment, state your name for
071the record, please. My name is Ruby Ramirez and I'm going into Pioneer High School. I started learning how to play the violin in fourth grade. When I went into Douglas, I learned a lot with Mr. Coelho and in the Mariachi summer camp. I started learning new music and different music styles with the help of Mr. Acosta. I felt like I was in a safe and accepting environment and I was able to ask him questions without feeling nervous or like I was being judged. I felt safe and heard and understood. I'm very interested in being mariachi because it helps me learn more about my roots and culture. This is why I'd want a teacher like Mr. Acosta teaching mariachi because he understands the culture, instruments, and language. I and many other students are sad that some
072of our best and most talented music teachers are leaving due to the lack of support in the music program. Thank you for listening. Thank you very much. Next person, please state your name for the record. Good evening, esteemed board members and district members. My name is Elvira Raya, and I'm a parent of three students here in the district. Alexis Parsa is one of them, and she is currently a mariachi student, as well as my incoming middle school student. I'm not going to... say and repeat a lot of what you already heard. We are deeply concerned about the departures of the music teachers. In particular, we are very concerned with the departures because all of the... All of the normal reasons for somebody to leave the district don't really apply at least to two of them.
073One particular of the teachers who resigned was trying to make this issue known to all of you and including the board members. He requested an audience with the board members and he was informed by HR that that was not going to be given, that opportunity was not be given to him. So if that was not of your knowledge, that's to begin with a problem because this particular teacher had tried to bring this issue to your attention and some of the very difficulties that they had been facing at his school. I don't. I'm not going to assume ill intentions on anybody's part, but there have been a lot of microaggressions towards our music teachers, both Mr. Loya and Mr. Coelho, Mr. Acosta as well. And the thing is that we really need to make sure that
074we retain our students. California is in a crisis for retention of teachers. A lot of people have mentioned that. We had fantastic teachers who have now left us because they just really could not stay in an environment that at best was not. supportive at worst was hostile to them. The other thing that I noticed is that right now we have an opportunity to right some wrongs. Mr. Acosta's removal from Pioneer High School without his input, without his knowledge until he was kind of told in passing that he wasn't going to be teaching the next year was completely, has been completely unacceptable. But we can still remedy that. And you heard the concerns from the community. There is a lot of things that the teachers have to offer. And we really need to figure out what
075are the systems. that we have in the district that is not allowing for our teachers to stay. The other thing that I would like to ask this particular board member is to really increase transparency about funding because even among the parents and the concerned parents, I'm hearing a lot of confusion about, well, Mariachi is taking funding from this other program and we need to have clarity that these funding sources are not. pulling from each other. So the community needs to be aware of that. The community needs to be aware of that the mariachi program is an emerging program, and therefore they need to be an investment. Band, marching band, they have had their money invested for their uniforms in the past. This program needs it now. So please add clarity. Thank you. Next, please state
076your name for the record. Good evening, Juan Esparza, parent to Alexis Esparza, who just spoke. I didn't plan to speak, but I just put my name in. Just briefly, just wanted to say that I'm here because I'm a concerned parent in light of what's going on with the Hope Music Program. I know that, you know, like everybody has mentioned, there's four... teachers that have left. I'm not too close to the situation and don't have details to point fingers or assign blame, but I know enough to know that it's not a coincidence. So obviously there's something wrong and hopefully something can be done for the benefit of our kids. You know, additionally to what Elvira just said there's still unfair treatment towards still other music teachers like Mr. Acosta that has been removed from without his
077consent like from his position at Pioneer High School. And lastly I just want to say that we're all here because the whole music program is suffering in their own way and need your immediate attention. Thank you. Thank you very much. Next person please state your name for the record. Well, no, Jess Serena Rodriguez former a board member from 1981 to 2019, almost 30 years. And I'm here for two topics. One of them I'm asking member Emily McDonald to please resign and save the district and the community a lot of money, thank you. The next one, I want to talk about the music and mariachi program. When, throughout my almost 30 years in here, I always was a proponent and supporter of the mariachi program. And I was told by the music teachers that they were
078not trained to do that. and that there was no interest by the students. I knew better. I knew that that wasn't right. Finally, in 2015, I was able to convince the music teachers, music department, to start a mariachi program. And we went on a five-year plan. And the five-year plan, they told me and told the rest of the board that they needed an support for the instruments, for the violins and other instruments. So we put enough money in the music program to do that. Also, we restored several music positions that had been cut in the past, and we went into a program. And finally, we hired a mariachi teacher. My position was always that the demand was going to be greater than what we had to offer, and that we needed more teachers, more mariachi
079trained teachers like Mr. Acosta. And he's a great teacher, but there's no way that he's going to be able to meet the needs of all of the schools. And we know that already. I proposed to the administration and to the board that as vacancies occurred, unfortunately we have it in a district that for teachers have gone that an attempt be made to hire highly qualified music teachers with mariachi experience it was done with mr Acosta and it was done with a recent hired at pioneer and I'm asking the students in the Parents at Pioneer to give this teacher an opportunity to show what she can can do with the mariachi But as you have vacancies in and the other schools take a look and bring in Individuals that are well trained music teachers with mariachi
080experience as Mr Acosta and I think that's one of the solutions the last point that I make listen to what the students are saying and what the teachers and the parents are saying and do study this issue as to why the teachers are leaving specifically in the music program and if there is a problem try to solve it thank you thank you very much muddy any more public comment miss christina gonzalez is the last one good evening my name is christina gonzalez i just want to thank you guys for letting us go last for the children have the opportunity um I'm a proud parent, Hispanic parent, with my son, who is an otter student, and going into the ninth grade at Pioneer High. Also, I have another son that's in the 11th grade, special ed
081at Pioneer High. I am thrilled that my son has been learning mariachi since summer camp of sixth grade, and which became immense. He brings immense joy to the pride of our family and community of playing mariachis. the vital role of fostering culture, pride, and unity among the community. Parents and children, it is a cherished part of our Hispanic identity, and my heart swells with pride seeing my son embrace this beautiful tradition. I'm not going to go farther down because pretty much everything was already said about losing the teachers. But one thing I am going to say that My son and I were very shocked when we heard that Mr. Acosta was not going to be teaching at Pioneer High School for mariachi, and there was not going to be a zero period for mariachi at
082Pioneer High School. As a parent, I am deeply troubled to see my son distraught and to also witness such a talented and devoted teacher who embodies our culture heritage. and resonates deeply with our community, experiencing challenges such as not being made aware of the fact that he had to reapply for a job that he was already in. Why on earth would he have to reapply and the job that he was posted, that was posted didn't even say it was a mariachi instructor? So from what the gentleman said, give the new teacher a chance. I understand that. And okay, I agree. And we spoke to the children regarding this. But she herself told us she doesn't speak Spanish. That is a big problem when it comes to the parents for the mariachi program. More than 50%
083of those students' parents do not speak English. And she was very persistent how she... Since she was four years old has always played the accordion. The accordion has traditional nothing to do with the traditional mariachi We're not building a north Daniel mariachi. This is just a traditional mariachi So I just hope that board members will take it in concern and give the children a chance to have that zero period at Pioneer High School with Mr. Costa. Now that changes all of the programs for these kids. My son is so upset about it. I have to, he's stressing over having to get ahold of the counselor, having to call and see who he could speak to because he wants zero period. Now apparently it's going to be jazz band or something. I don't know. We're not
084100% sure. I tried calling already and they don't have the programs yet. listed yet either so please just take it in consideration after hearing all these children thank you very much thank you all right thank you very much for the public comment we're going to go ahead and get started on this item superintendent So we're going to be giving the board an update on the status of our music program. And so before we have Christina Lambie here, come up, Christina, our executive director of teaching and learning who's helping oversee our mariachi program, I do want to address a couple things that were said tonight to the community and students who are here. First of all, we are... OUR DISTRICT HAS SUPPORTED MUSIC AND WE ARE COMMITTED TO MUSIC. WHEN THERE HAS BEEN SEVERE CUTS HAPPENED,
085OUR BOARD PASSBOARDS AND OUR CURRENT BOARD HAVE ALWAYS BEEN VERY MINDFUL TO PROTECT ANY IMPACT TO MUSIC BECAUSE WE UNDERSTAND AND AGREE WITH WHAT YOU SAID TONIGHT HOW IMPORTANT MUSIC IS FOR OUR STUDENTS. and that they need to have those opportunities in their life and then it makes a difference in their learning and as as they grow up as individuals learning responsibility and growing as whole round as students so you know we can continue to be committed I heard comments made about my communication to the community about thriving community. And I think the only way we're going to continue thriving is to work together and support our teachers that are coming in so that our students can continue to grow and benefit from our music program. That's the only way it's going to work. Otherwise,
086we won't continue. and we will hurt our music program. So I know that teachers who have left care deeply for our community, as many of you have said, and I know that that's what they would want for their students to continue to grow. I also want to clarify that no one was asked to leave. No one was asked to leave, and it wasn't something that we were expecting or that we were... WE WERE EXPECTING IT HAS BEEN A CHALLENGE. IT HAS BEEN VERY CHALLENGING BECAUSE YOU ARE RIGHT. THERE IS A TEACHER SHORTAGE. THERE IS A LOT OF COMPETITION AND OPTIONS FOR OUR TEACHERS IN MANY AREAS INCLUDING MATH, SPECIAL EDUCATION, BILINGUAL TEACHERS. WE ARE ALL COMPETING WITH ONE ANOTHER. REGARDING TOXIC ENVIRONMENTS, THIS IS THE FIRST SINCE THIS ISSUE HAS COME UP. That I haven't
087heard of any kind of toxic or anybody been mistreated I have met with our union leadership to ask if there's anything that they were aware of I have not received any formal complaint any email any anything I've spoke to all the principals to see if there's any concerns have been raised and there have not and people who know me know that if the Concern is brought to my attention. It'll be investigated. Especially if anyone is treated badly in our district I mean that goes for anyone no one is going to be treated badly or with disrespectfully in this district. It will not be tolerated and will be looked into and it will be dealt appropriately. So with that, I'm going to have our director, executive director, present to the board and give you an update
088on the things that we are doing for music and how we're planning to move forward with all of your help because our kids deserve that. Our kids deserve for us to be working together to support our music program. Justina? Thank you. Thank you, Superintendent Lampkin, trustees, community and staff. It is always a great opportunity to be able to share about the music program. I understand there have been a lot of concerns raised. Hopefully this presentation will help to answer some of those concerns and provide some information for you. We always start out by thinking about our LCAP goals and how what we're doing is designed to support our goals for student success. And just in terms of the LCAP, our music programs and VAPA in general, visual and performing arts, are captured in Goal 1,
089College and Career Ready, which is really about students. having the skills and knowledge in order to make choices about what they want to do in the future. And music can be a very essential part of that aspect of a children's life. What I'm going to outline for you today is sort of a status update of our music programs, as well as some of the improvements that teachers and staff have been working on. I'll also talk about some of our challenges and how we are planning on addressing them. So one of the major challenges that we've been experiencing and it's not unique to woodland It's it's been an issue around the state is enrollment in music programs during and then post pandemic. So there's some data here. So just thinking about elementary first. In elementary, we're
090really working on increasing enrollment during the pandemic in 2020, 2021 school year, when we were basically entirely online until the last nine weeks of the school year, music happened online. and that is a very difficult thing for both students and teachers, and we saw a drastic decline in the number of students participating. You can see the numbers there. Now, we actually. started capturing in Aries our music student enrollment in elementary during the 2020 school year. So that's why it starts there. But anecdotally from the teachers, we know that previously they had a much higher number of students participating. But as you can see, over the last couple of years, as we've gotten further and further from the impacts of COVID, then we've doubled or tripled. or in the case of strings, significantly increased the number
091of students participating in elementary. And then at secondary, so as you heard, Mariachi is a relatively new program. It is going into its fourth year. We had 78 students participating in 22-23, and that is also has been growing. Now what's happening now is that as those students who were in elementary during the pandemic, as those students have been moving through the years into middle school and high school, we're still in that rebuilding mode. And this was definitely a concern of the teachers, especially the secondary teachers, that we had multiple discussions about at our, we have monthly music department meetings. And so one of those topics that was discussed regularly was recruitment and retention. And we had some ideas on how to do that, and I'll talk about that in another slide or so. One of
092the other challenges, specifically at elementary, is that our program is a pull-out program. And this is something that both music teachers and general ed teachers struggle a little bit with. So students have to leave the classroom in order to participate in band and strings in fifth and sixth grade. And that means that students are missing out on their homeroom instruction, whatever is happening during that time. And so students sometimes struggle with that. needing to leave, needing to miss something that's happening. Teachers sometimes don't want the students to leave because they're doing a really important assignment or a lesson. So that is another of the challenges that's happening at elementary. And the elementary teachers have been working this year on some kind of developing some alternate scenarios, looking at different models. we visited a district in
093the area to talk to their teachers and look at how they structure their program so that research has is in the works but it's one of those things that takes a little time to to develop completely revamping a program is a significant undertaking and will take time and lots more conversations both with the board and contractually etc Going into so our current staffing so as I said in elementary we have we have a pullout program in fifth and sixth grade We have four band teachers and three strings teachers. We do have all fourth graders receive strings instruction and that's Not necessarily not really a pullout program, but half the class goes at a time so that as Mr.. Rodriguez was saying when the strings program was started, the goal was to build up to string
094orchestra and mariachi at high school. At that time, the district invested quite a significant amount of money in order to purchase enough violins to be used by all of the fourth graders at the elementary schools. So that initial work was done back then in, I think, 2015. Christina, can I just clarify something? Because it was a request from one of the speakers. So any time we've added something to the music program we've done one time investment to get it started. We did it during spring spring of spring programs to support our music all our elementary school sites at the time and then we did it again to start off our monetary program without impacting the regular monies coming to our music department. And so there's been about 70 thousand dollars that are. ALLOCATED APPROXIMATELY EVERY
095YEAR FOR OUR MUSIC PROGRAM AND THAT'S BEEN ONGOING. SO IT'S BEEN WAY OVER A MILLION DOLLARS. At secondary, you can see we have four total music directors at the secondary level. Currently, we have one vacancy. It is a high priority to hire a qualified music instructor. So the site administrators and the staff in the human resources department are working hard recruiting. and trying to get those positions filled. And we were very successful to get three great music instructors for Douglas Lee and Pioneer, and we're currently working on Woodland High. We do have Mr. Acosta, who's our mariachi instructor. And then both high schools also have some teachers that also teach other music classes, choir and guitar at Pioneer and piano at Woodland High. So really a wide variety of music being provided at the secondary
096level. Okay, so moving into some of the improvements that we've put into place over the last really two years. So one of the concerns of the teachers, both elementary and secondary, is that elementary school students, right, that the participation was low, had been low, and they wanted to increase that participation. And what we... what we found was that they were using a paper form that was given to some students, but not all at the elementary level. So like in fifth and sixth grade. And what we decided to do was create a form that was sent out an online form to all fifth and sixth grade families and students so that anyone could sign up regardless of whether you received the paper form or lost it in your backpack or whatever happens with. with paper forms,
097we felt like that really eliminated that paper form and streamlined the process. The teachers then also had a spreadsheet that we sent to them with all of the names of the students and it included what instrument they wanted to play. So that really took care of a lot of that initial work with them trying to get instruments in kids' hands as soon as possible. Another improvement is, well, as I said, back in 2020, we started tracking elementary music participation. That was also just to kind of help retain, keep records of students as they moved into middle school and encourage students to stay in the music program. The district has not had an inventory, does not have a district inventory of music instruments. And so when... We started talking about this as a as a music
098department. We looked into various ways to keep track of Music instrument inventory. We had a little presentation from a vendor with a program. We ultimately decided To go in the direction of keeping those records in Aries And so what we're doing now is tagging all new instruments that come in and we're developing a process for tagging all existing instruments And that way teachers will be able to check out instruments very easily and then we'll be able to see where instruments are and which schools have instruments that might need to be moved to another school. If Dingle needs five violins and Whitehead has five extra sitting around then it'll be much easier to take care of that. One of the things that's been brought up is training and we did We did bring in a professional
099music educator. He's a professor in the area to provide some training last year that training actually culminated in that the performance by Many of the music teachers at the festival of music. It was an amazing experience and all of the feedback that that we received from the teachers who participated was that it was a great experience and they really appreciated having music training. And it didn't matter that it was maybe in an area that they weren't familiar with, they appreciated learning about the culture, the language, and the history, and the music of mariachi. The last two things, the elementary teachers, I said that they had worked on some scheduling ideas for the elementary strings and band program. They also spent a number of hours working on their scope and sequence. That is not something that
100exists at secondary, but that's planned for next year or this year coming up. but elementary teachers reviewed and refined their scope and sequence so that everybody is kind of on the same page about expectations, where students are at certain times of the year, what types and kinds of music will be played at the concerts that they plan for, what those expectations and common agreements are. And then finally, one of the ways that we're trying to reach out to the community is by establishing the the VAPA committee, which where we invited folks from arts organizations from around Yolo County and then had meetings with where teachers attended and representatives from those organizations. A lot of great connections made between our teachers and groups like the Woodland Opera House and Tana and Yolo Arts, for example. Christina
101if we can add other thing about our summer camps because that did you did you mention that? So I think that's a very important addition as well because we recognize that we wanted to our students to continue being engaged during the summer months In summer camp and you heard a couple comments this evening about how valuable that has been for our students to continue engaged during the summer Thank you, so we're just talking about program improvements in terms of funding and fiscal improvements listed here are some of the improvements that have been made based on needs identified by the music teachers so All of these things, you know happened in conjunction and in discussion with the music teachers one of the concerns of the secondary teachers, especially was recruitment and retention of those lower level
102students. So elementary for middle and then middle school for high. And so one of the things that we developed in collaboration with the music teachers was funding for field trips where those school bands, choirs, et cetera, went on essentially concert tours and the transportation department transported all of the bands and mariachi and choir with all of their instruments and they traveled around the district to play at the elementary and actually they played at lee as well all those school sites it was an amazing thing and again that came from the teachers and we were able to allocate funding for those field trips So elementary kids got to learn about all the instruments and hear about all the amazing things that those programs do for them. Another high priority was piano tuning. It might not sound
103like much, but it's actually a very difficult thing to obtain high-quality piano tuning services for educational pianos. And it had been, from what I've been told, many years, maybe six or seven years since the pianos had been tuned, especially at the secondary schools, and so we were able to make that happen. And then again last year the the board supported the development of the mariachi program by allocating funding specific to mariachi, but that did not take away one of the points I wanted to make was it did not take away from the funding that already was established for the rest of the music program and And and then there was also additional funding secured to purchase we needed to purchase music books after the pandemic many of those books stayed at home and so the
104music book order in that last year after the pandemic was I think one of the largest they'd ever seen and then finally just in terms of Fiscal Responsibility we've been I worked with a local vendor to lower costs for instrument purchase and repair So trying to get the most bang for our buck We have lots of instruments that need repair and we also have lots of instruments that need replacing But we can't replace them all at the same time. So just trying to find ways to to lower costs And then finally, what I wanted to say about this was just in terms of transparency with the teachers, we do share the budget with the teachers. They help develop those budgeting priorities, determining which vendors to use for supplies and for repairs, how much to allocate
105for each school site for supplies and for repairs. We have what's called a smart sheet, and all the music teachers have access to that, and we review that every month at those monthly music department meetings. I also wanted to say, just because there were a few things said about instruments, this last year we distributed, purchased and distributed about 30 instruments, not mariachi instruments, but other instruments for the other programs, and then In the spring, we're tagging them right now. They'll be distributed, but pianos for the program at Woodland High, and then 49 stringed instruments for Woodland High and Pioneer, 30 for Woodland High and 19 for Pioneer. Not mariachi, but to support the strings program. So there have been a variety of instruments purchased, not just for mariachi. Okay, and my last slide just thinking
106about our next steps I described what we were working on with asset tagging so it's a significant task and we'll just continue working on it this school year just in terms of understanding how many instruments there are out there what their condition is and And which students are checked out to them that will be a significant help for that We're going to be working on the scope and sequence for our secondary music classes Like I said, we have that for elementary but for secondary That's something that needs to be worked on. We're going to be working with the teachers to develop consensus around what the expectations are for events such as the holiday parade, the festival of music, what concerts are expected. This year we had quite a number of disagreements among the teachers about
107which events they should participate in with their students. And so we really just need to develop some common understanding and expectations about what our music programs are expected to do together. In terms of long-term planning, and someone mentioned the choir risers, we know that the choir risers are a need, and they're a significant investment. So that is going to take some long-term planning in order to replace a large equipment such as that. And then other large instruments like percussion equipment is more expensive, and so long-term planning is what's required. It's required for that. And then finally, you know, we recognize that music programs play an essential role in our schools. Everybody loves it when the students march down Main Street during the holiday parade, when the pep band plays at football games, when families gather
108for concerts at schools. And we want to support the continued the continued development of our music programs so that as many students as possible can benefit from them. And I think that's it. There's just some questions. Thank you very much. Before we go to questions, if any of the board members need to step out to go to the restroom, I'm going to ask that we do it individually so that we can continue on with the agenda. Is everyone okay with that? Rather than a break. Yes, ma'am. Is that okay? Thank you. Go ahead. Let's continue to the questions. I have a question. Yes. So one of the comments tonight stated that it is a state law that we are not and have not been following that every student is supposed to be taught music education
109every day as a core subject during all grades K through 6. Do you know how accurate that description of that law is and. What is our participation in regards to that? So there wasn't a law specified, but what I think the speaker was referring to is what's called a broad course of study. So there is Ed Code that the district is responsible for, the district and schools are responsible for providing a broad course of study, which does include visual and performing arts. There isn't anything that I'm aware of that says specifically that students, I think it was mentioned, learning to read music by sixth grade, there isn't anything in Ed Code that is that specific. But yes, providing a broad course of study which includes visual and performing arts, which is visual art as well.
110So arts, ceramics, drawing, et cetera, that also is a part of that. So would you say in that respect that it actually has the ability to be covered broader, that we're covering that particular requirement? I think so. I want to expand on that one because that was a question I had and I didn't pre write my questions or give them to you ahead because I knew I was going to get some stuff from the group. So Ed code does state that K 12 students must have access to dance music theater and visual arts not and or but and visual arts. Are we doing enough to meet that criteria in our K 12. That being said. without having classroom teachers have to produce all of this. So I think sorry I think that goes back to
111those different ways of offering elementary music so The program that we visited in Folsom Cordova offers general music and that was something that the teachers had had really looked into a program there the program there provides music to every fourth through sixth grader So we're not offering it necessarily to every fifth and sixth grader because it's a pullout program. So there are just some structural challenges that that that prevent that for us. OK. So just for transparency we all know that this is my wheelhouse VAPA visual and performing arts. I'm a cellist. I went to a performing arts high school and I wanted the VAPA committee. So this is something that's close to me, especially with all of my kids in the music program. At my school site, which is a Sparto Elementary School, all
112of the kids TK through eighth grade get a push-in music class where that allows teachers to have a teacher prep time. And I know you guys are exploring some different models of how we can capture this standard. and give this access to education to our students. But what are our immediate plans because we cannot do this sufficiently without bolstering our music and art staff. What are our immediate plans. We talked about recruitment but what does that look like. So well, we're currently we're recruiting for the vacancy that we have There there also was talking I don't know if this is what you're referring to But there is some funding on its way from the states through popped prop 28 And speaking of the VAPA committee We've been talking about the VAPA committee Having discussions and
113and and beginning to develop plans for for that that funding coming up with different options that that is to support all of the visual and performing arts. We would in order to increase the amount of music that happens in schools we would need more staffing. Right. So that's that's where we're at right now. We have an allocation and we're working to fill the one vacancy that we have. Now in our in our district we have a PE release time That's what our teachers have some other districts have used release time for music programs That's how they've been able to to do that or some other science release time And so it would be a matter of us to kind of look to see how we can incorporate more music and more VAPA opportunities and this
114additional funding gives us that opportunity. But to be very honest, you know, this is something that all districts have struggled. Not every single district has theater, arts, and music all in the elementary, every single grade. Scheduled in and that is what the intention of this new funding source is to support districts to increase the offerings for VAPA in within the School day and after school so we're gonna be using a rapid committee to help us see how we can use those monies to support all our Visual and performing arts. I know that our theater program has a lot of needs lighting lighting issues and sound system because I've been to those theater productions and and so we're gonna be looking at it how we can support and improve in all those areas so this is
115a great opportunity for us but currently no we do not have all every single music student every single elementary school student does not receive music in every grade level in our schools at this time I just have a couple more questions I don't want to hog the space but I just wanted to follow up. Another concern that was addressed was the limited number of music zero period opportunities. What is the minimum number? Do we have a rule of thumb for our minimum number of students that we need for a class? I don't actually know the answer to that question. I would have to get back to you. So the master schedule is the principals have a lot of it falls on the principals on how many sections they have available and where students show the
116most interest. So for example, if there is a zero period and we only have six students sign up, but we need... more sections devoted to let's say in an in-school class, maybe it's I'll just make something up ethnic studies or a science class So though the principal has to make decisions based on their allocation and student interest so we Unfortunately do not have the fact that we've stuff decisions made and prioritized and so, you know ZERO PERIOD IS AVAILABLE WHEN THERE'S EXTRA SECTIONS AND THERE'S A NEED AND THERE'S A LOT OF INTEREST. AND THOSE CHANGE ALL THE TIME. SO THERE'S NO GUARANTEE. LAST YEAR WE WERE HAVING A DIFFICULTY GETTING ENOUGH STUDENTS, FOR EXAMPLE, AT PIONEER HIGH SCHOOL FOR JAZZ. THIS YEAR THEY ALREADY HAVE IT ON THEIR MASTER SCHEDULE. AND SO IT JUST DEPENDS.
117AND IT ALSO DEPENDS ON THE TEACHERS AVAILABLE, THEIR CREDENTIAL. SO IT'S VERY COMPLEX. BUT AT LEAST WE NEED TO AT LEAST HAVE, WE'D LIKE TO AT LEAST SEE 20 STUDENTS. And that's pretty low for secondary. And do we have is there parity in that? So if we're going to have a history class or an advanced placement class, we can have the same sort of rules and qualifications to add that extra section? For we prioritize all our courses our core courses and graduation requirement classes those are priority we also prioritize our our ELD classes for our English learners on our special ed So right there all those sections get sucked up prior Those are priority and then after that We look at electives and we look at students' interest and then so the principals have to
118work with their staff and counselors and make adjustments and use those sections as best as they can. But it's not we have had in the past where there has been able the principles have been able to offer a class of six six students we have they have made decisions and have prior, you know made it work to keep some of our our music program so It's it's very it's not uncommon for us to already have low numbers to support our music program Especially when there's low interest and we still want to keep the music program going Our principals do their best to do that And last question we heard actually to follow up on that. I heard someone say that even though the AP music theory class was great growing and popularity that class was
119cut. Can we speak to that. Yes I just talked to Mr. Seedles this afternoon and he said that's not accurate. It's been the last with only six students who are interested in declining an interest and that's why they had to make a tough decision and not offering that course. And then final question, we are talking about Woodland Joint Unified being blacklisted by the arts community. And do we see evidence of that with our applicant pool for our vacancies? And if that is something that's going on where teachers don't want to come here because we don't support the arts enough, are we doing something with our partners in the VAPA committee to change that? So I have not heard from the folks that I've spoken to. I speak with Sac State. One of the issues is
120that there are very few music teacher candidates coming out of music programs where there used to be 40 at a time. Now there's four or five. And so the pool of folks that are coming out of university programs with music credentials is very slim. We were able to very quickly hire two folks for our first couple of vacancies, and those folks wanted to come to Woodland. So I am not sure where that feeling comes from, but from folks that we've hired recently, they wanted to come here. and they expressed that desire. So I'm not exactly sure where that comes from. Okay, so final thought, your alma mater will always hire you. And the more our music program grows, the greater our capacity is to have some of those students return like the lawyers and teach
121at our. organization at our institution I just want to make sure we're doing everything that we can to continue to bolster our music and our arts programs because as a kid who was that quirky kid who found a happy place playing the cello and dancing I want to make sure we provide those same opportunities for our students because it's where they develop their voice I never thought I was going to be on Broadway but it really did help with my public speaking and my presence so I applaud all of the students who came up here and spoke passionately about their interest and their love. All right. Trustee Rodriguez. Trustee Rodriguez. So I just have a quick question. So the new hires that came on board, are you able to speak generally to their credentials, what
122their background was? So I don't want to say too much because I don't want to, I'm respectful to our teachers. I'll say this, that they do come with experience. And I also ask that we embrace them with a welcome the open arms just the way that we did with mr. Loyal mr. Coelho when they came to our district and so I They are qualified. They went through the process and they're highly qualified and they were selected so I don't want to go any deeper without without disrespecting and violating their confidentiality All right. Any other questions before I intercept and I make my own questions? All right. So I'm not sure if you can help me answer these questions or if we may have to bring up Leni from HR, but I'm interested in learning about
123how we divide our HR department personnel to work with the different departments in schools. I think that's a Leni question. So I'm going to go a little bit further, Lini. I'm looking to learn, you know, our HR department has, you have your staff. Are they divided by schools and departments at each school? How does that function? How do we know if you're a music teacher at Pioneer High School, how do you identify who your HR contact is? So our human resources staff is divided by classified and certificated as far as supporting and recruiting. And then within those two groups, they are divided by school sites or departments. So we have two analysts dedicated to both classified and certificated. In addition to that structure, We also have our director, our current director of HR, Teresa Dunlop.
124She's actually a recruiter as well and takes things even further in looking for candidates in different pools, contacting universities and things like that. So to answer your question, if a music teacher or any teacher has a question or any staff member has a question about their employment, their position, we have a link on our website. It says HR by HR. hr contacts by topic and they pick their topic or their school site and then they know exactly who to contact so if i understand you correctly two analysts work with are classified personnel and two analysts, different analysts work with our certificated personnel. Yes, to support general employment and recruitment and hiring. We have other staff that are specialized in workers' comp, leave of absences, and just general HR support. Okay. Can you state how many
125employees are in each of the classifications? In how many class you did and if it didn't classify. Yeah. Oh gosh. I just had my numbers over there in I I don't want to give Specifics, but I just looked at it's about 700 in our certificated ranks It's about 600 in our classified ranks And then it's about another 50 in admin and unrepresented confidential noon duty staff so those are regular ongoing employees thank you lenny this is very helpful what i want to tell my board members is that for a while now we've known that our hr department is slim We have a lot of employees. So when you think of the analysts that provide services and supports for our teachers, certificated and classified employees, they're far stretched. So as we continue working with our budget
126and making investments, HR is definitely a department that needs investment if we want to look at long-term employment, and we also want to recruit and retain. right so i think that's definitely a department that we need to consider making a bigger investment in order for our staff teachers and staff to have the supports that they need not to say that they don't have them right now but i always think that we could do best and i think of our hr department as our counseling department for our students right we want to make investments in our counseling in our counselors to make sure that our students have their supports but also how do we make our hr department more robust so that we can continue striving to to provide the excellent customer service to our employees,
127right? But I'm not taking away or saying that we're not doing or meeting our goal, but I know that we could always have that room for improvement. All right, anybody else? Trustee Rodriguez. Let me try it again. Are new hires, should they be able to cover all the needs in our music department? Yes I think so. Yes I'm confident in their ability to be able to teach different genres. Yes yes. I can share this that I know a pioneer high school teacher is very experienced mariachi instructor who's actually I believe has been recognized and received awards for their performances. So they do come with experience and it does meet the needs of the district. Last question or comment. We You started with our LCAP goals and one of our major LCAP goals is parent engagement
128and our music booster parents Which I'm not a part of because I can only do so much Have a proven record of showing up and getting things done Are we working as a district provide like does our cafe specialists interface with them? Are we doing how do we support the boosters who support our kids? So the boosters work closely with their site principal to address, you know, what are the goals and Priorities they've set Activities that they want set fundraisers that they want to produce. They mostly work closely with the site principals at the school sites Okay, and then I think I believe we do a training once a year Or the funding piece boosters boosters and PTAs for funding But there they are more site based sites parent group versus a district It's not
129a school district boosters for the school site Okay, thank you Thank you very much, board members. So this is an informational item. If any of you would like to take action for the future on this specific topic, you'll need to submit a yellow sheet. With that said, thank you very much for the presentation. We are moving on to the next item on the agenda, which is item G, public comment. This is for general public comment. We have, I believe, about... 16 live people here that are in person that have submitted a green sheet. And then we also have 13 voicemails. So. Before we start, do we have any statements to make on decorum and respectful language? Thank you. I was going to ask our superintendent to go ahead and lay out the rules and policies
130as stated. So when our superintendent is ready, she can go ahead and do so. Before we start, is the board wanting to consider extending the time? Yeah. I do want to be mindful. It is about, I don't know, eight minutes to eight. So folks have been waiting for a while. What do you guys all feel comfortable with? I was going to say the same thing, just extend it for an hour. Do we have a second? And go the whole point of me asking for the hour at the beginning because we said we had an hour and a half last time was to give the same amount of time that we gave last time if we feel the need to extend Somebody make the motion and I'll second But I don't even know how many Speakers
131we have right now. I already stated it. I did state it We have 16 people that are here in person and we have 13 voicemails Just for clarification. Are we asking to extend the 20 minutes to one hour? Right the 20 minute. I love it. I second Noel's emotion who's still on the table Well, there's no way we can get rid done with that in 20 minutes. So I will second his motion. I All right. So I am willing to support that as long as we do the in-person ones first because these folks have been waiting for a while and I would like all of the 16 names called at the beginning and all of them lined up please so that we can get this as quickly as possible so that we can allow for
132the public comment that has been submitted in advance through recordings to also have some period of time. Anyone else wish to state anything? All right. Can I get a roll call vote? Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Four of us that are present today are in favor with three individuals absent. Go ahead and state the procedure. Okay, so we're gonna be calling some names to come to the front so that we can make sure that we use the one hour as efficiently as possible and to allow every speaker to get an opportunity to speak so if you can please be mindful of your comments and avoid repeating so that it allows more time for Another community members to make their comment. We want to also ask the public to withhold from Cheering or booing or any of
133those type of things so that we can get through and have everybody Come to speak their mind and give their opinion on the topic It was very well done earlier with the music program So hopefully we can do to continue that now so that everyone has an opportunity to express their view Which you have the right to do and we're here to listen to each one of you Okay, so with that we're gonna go ahead and call Each and then also be mindful that this agenda this topic is not agendized. So the board will not be able to deliberate Or engage or respond to questions the board is just here to listen and that is because that is required by the Brown Act so The board will not be able to answer questions or have
134a discussion on the item. They can ask for clarification if they're not understanding a speaker or direct staff for more additional information. But it's not an agenda item so there will be no discussion. And if we can just remember to be respectful and there are children present. You can speak your mind but let's not. use hate speech and be respectful. That's all I'd like to say. Thank you very much, Trustee Fowler. With that said, please announce the 16 names. Laura Brubaker, Christina Venucci, Nili Kirschner, Walter England, Nili Kirschner again, so, okay. Jesse Loren, Barbara Ryan, Dan Brown, Joanne Bowen. Alex Trotter, Beth Born, Dordy Jensen, Martha Voss, Norman Campis, Echo Camacho, Kathy Guerrero, and Carol Nielsen. If any of you need to sit, please, by all means, go ahead and do so. Just be ready
135to go once you're prepared. All right, please state your name and please begin. Sorry about that. Laura Brubaker. I'm gonna date myself a bit and talk about something I witnessed as a huge concern in my own community in the 90s. I remember the media and parents in my town up in arms about having gay teachers in schools or gay adults participating in any kind of program where they interacted with kids because they were convinced that just being around gay people or knowing that gay people existed would somehow convert their otherwise straight kids gay. In 1998, Matthew Shepard, a gay 21-year-old college student, was beaten, tortured, and left to die. His attackers claimed he had come on to them. I still remember sitting in a shop class the day after he was found and will never
136forget. the horrific language the students around me used to excuse his attackers because they had also grown up hearing how gay people were trying to turn them gay. Words can sometimes seem harmless, but our children are listening and they are learning what lives we value and what lives we do not value. The result of this dehumanizing of gays and lack of education in schools about different identities resulted in my friends waiting until adulthood to come out to their families. It made them feel unsafe to be themselves. No one should want that for a child, but the same rhetoric that I heard as a child in the 90s is being recycled today, but now is being aimed at the transgender community. Now think of how transgender kids feel hearing their existence being put into the context
137of a social contagion by trustee McDonald, whose statement falsely equates the mere knowledge or even acceptance of transgender people with glorifying or encouraging transness. The two things are not at all the same thing, and any rational person can see that. Her words make transgender people out to be either villains trying to convert our kids or witless dupes. tricked into being transgender. Worse yet, she used the podium her community elected her to to say these things. That adds weight and authority to her words, and that is inexcusable. The fact that she chose to use the occasion of the WJUSD Pride Month resolution to say such thing exacerbates the harm of her words. Our youth are listening, and they are learning what lives are valuable and what lives are not valuable. I have tried and failed to
138find any substantial proof of the facts that Trustee McDonald supplied in her statement. So I have to ask myself whether she chose to read her statement knowing it held false information or did she read something based on her feelings on the matter without bothering to confirm if any of it held any truth? Are either of these options appropriate for a board member? Maya Angelou taught us that when someone shows us who you are you believe them the first time trustee McDonald you have shown us who you are It's because of this that trustee McDonald must resign you have shown your words through your words that you are incapable of serving all students and employees of WJ USD if you fail to resign tonight your constituents have frozen chosen. Thank you very much. You will be
139recalled We have more. Thank you very much next speaker. Please state your name for the record Hello, my name is Christina Venucci. As an educator, my job has been to figure out how to teach every student. Fifteen years ago, I was teaching children, middle schoolers. Today, I'm teaching adults who are aspiring to be teachers. One of the common things between the two groups, sorry, one of the common themes is that in order to teach my students, I have to respect who they are. Sometimes they are different than how their family sees them. But my job is to respect who they are. If I don't, I know that my students will not learn from me, regardless of their age. Every good teacher knows that teaching is not just about the subject matter. Every good teacher has
140learned that they are not just a teacher. They are also a social worker, a counselor, a cheerleader, a mentor, a coach, a referee, a shoulder to cry on, an ear for someone to listen, and then they're a teacher. The good ones are willing to use the names and pronouns that students want, not because it's socially acceptable or politically correct, but because they respect their students, and they know that with respect comes learning. June was Pride Month, and that means a lot. of different things to people on all sides of the political spectrum. But what many people forget, including Miss McDonald, is that Pride Month is about acceptance. Guess the original focus was on the LGBT community and the hate we have endured? But Pride Month should serve as a reminder that everyone has a right
141to be, that everyone has a right to exist. When we refuse to allow others, regardless of whether we agree to them, their ability to exist, we are walking a dangerous path of extremism that does not belong in democracy. I'm asking for the resignation of Ms. McDonald, not because of what she believes, but because she used her position as a trustee to tell students in the LGBT community and faculty in the LGBT community that they do not have a right to be, that they do not have a right to exist. Thank you very much. Please state your name for the record. Hi, I'm Neely Kirshner. I was here at the June meeting, Emily, when you made your statement, and I was here at the last meeting to make a public comment, and I came back because
142I wanted the chance to address you directly, Emily. We weren't here last time, and it was understandable given that you were preparing for Eid and, you know, your business and your family, and I can understand that, but it makes me think of an analogy that I'd like to share with you. So you'll have to use your imagination a little bit. Imagine that you actually... sent your kids to the schools that you are here to support and that your kids were in Woodland Joint Unified School District. And imagine that you brought them to a board meeting because the board was going to pass a resolution, a good resolution on religious freedom and respecting all different religions, including Muslims. So imagine that. Yay, happy moment. You're there with your kids like I was with mine for the
143pride resolution. and the Juneteenth resolution. Imagine that. And then imagine that a trustee from out of the blue decides to abuse their seat at the table and read a statement about how it's just too bad that that resolution honoring religious freedom passed because it has to include Muslims. Because everybody knows that Muslims are associated with terrorism or some other sensationalized stereotype that plays into Islamophobia. That would feel really bad. If I were in the audience, I'm not Muslim, but I would be mad about that. Some of your supporters here may not care if Muslims get insulted, but imagine they did it for Christians, and then you'd get the pearl clutching, right? You need to understand that that's what you did. That resolution wasn't about top surgery. It wasn't about resolving that Woodland Joint Unified would
144give children puberty blockers at school. It didn't have any of that in there. It was about making a commitment to having students and families and teachers and staff feel safe and supported and having an inclusive environment. And you immediately turned around and undermined that. So for the people that want to frame this as a free speech issue for you Emily, that's not what it is. We all have free speech but we're all sitting here waiting our turn to speak. Every single person here, even the people whose views are abhorrent to me. I know they're here and we'll hear from them soon and they hate my views and they're hearing from me now and we're all being respectful. It's not about that. It's about you abusing that seat. It's about you not understanding how the job
145seems to work. Maybe you're making baby steps today. You seem to understand a little more how a consent agenda works. works a little bit. So that's progress. But you don't seem to be taking this job seriously. To represent all the students and families and teachers and staff, you're not doing that. You broke our trust, so you can't be a trustee. So you either need to step up and get it together, or you need to resign, or you'll be recalled. Thank you. Thank you very much. Next person, please state your name for the record. Walter England. Good evening esteemed board members, especially board member McDonald. Thank you for the opportunity to speak during today's public comment. I'd like to take this opportunity to provide a brief historical summary on an area of personal concern. In 1919,
146the Institute for Sexual Wissenschaft was the first institute of sexology in the world, conducting pioneering research on sexuality and surrounding studies, especially in the areas of gay, transgender, and intersex topics. On May 6, 1933, Nazis stormed the institute setting fire to its research in a massive book burning and killing Dora Richter, the first known person to undergo male to female reassignment surgery. On June 28, 1969, a division of the New York City Police, known as the Public Morals Squad, raided the Stonewall Inn, considered to be one of the most popular gay bars in the area. Instead of the standard arrest for gender nonconformism, a riot broke out that caused some police to flee the scene while the rest remained trapped inside. More police arrived to beat back the crowd, but this ultimately led to days
147of violence between police and those protesting, an event that would become an iconic part of history. In 1977, celebrity singer Anita Bryant started Save Our Children Incorporated in order to overturn a recent ordinance in Miami that barred discrimination in housing, employment, and public accommodation on the grounds of sexual orientation. She claimed the ordinance infringed on her right to teach biblical morality to her children by requiring Christian schools to allow the hiring of openly homosexual employees. While she was successful in getting the ordinance overturned, this had the unintended effect of galvanizing community activism against her and destroying any semblance of a career she once had. Eventually, only the likes of the Ku Klux Klan would show up to defend her rallies. On March 18th of this year, Kelly J. Keene Mitchell, a popular figure in the
148self-described gender-critical movement, organized a rally in Melbourne, Australia as part of a larger political action tour. 30 members of Australia's National Socialist Network showed up to defend the organizers and attendees against counter-protesters, giving Nazi salutes and carrying a banner that said, destroy pedo freaks. While she would later disavow their presence, photo and video evidence suggests a collegiate, if not warm, interaction between the organizers and the neo-Nazis. On March 25th, after a public outcry against her appearance in New Zealand, thousands of counter-protesters showed up at her rally, one even managing to dump tomato sauce on her. Subsequent events in the country were canceled. Whether in beer halls or private Facebook groups for concerned parents, darker actions always begin with speech. Free speech grants you the right to speak your mind but does not exempt you from
149ridicule or counter protest. To the members of this board, I would remind you that who we are is reflected in the company we keep. And to those who would use the cloak of concern to hide their intentions, know that we see you. Wherever you wear your heads, we'll be there waiting. We will drive you back into the shadows where you belong. Thank you. Thank you. Please state your name for the record Next person. Hi, my name is Jesse Lauren and I've spent 20 years as a teacher but not in this district I'm a mother of three and I was compelled to come here and I have a prepared statement, but I would just like to say that The abhorrent comments that trustee McDonald made Should at least get an apology you should apologize Because all
150these all your fellow members have to sit through all of these people coming forward to say how abort your comments are you should just apologize I think it'd be great if you resigned But I support the recall. I'll just go on with my prepared statements I'm here because of the harmful comments of Trustee McDonald, who referred to children as contagions. Shaming children for their identities destroys lives. As a teacher, I know kids need to feel safe and welcome in order to learn, and creating a welcoming, affective domain helps students excel. A welcome and safe environment supports mental health for the most vulnerable amongst us. All students should feel safe, welcome, included, and celebrated. Everyone means all the gender diverse, all the neurodiverse, all the jocks, and all the band kids. I support the overall direction
151of Woodland Joint Unified School District towards inclusion and safety, but I also want to recognize Trustee McDonald as an outlier, and her comments are an outlier. I support the efforts of the recall and I believe representatives in positions of authority should represent all students. And you have not. Thank you. Thank you very much. Please go ahead and state your name for the record. Good evening. My name is Dan Brown. Thank you superintendent board I myself have on four boards in Yolo County three boards in the state of California And I understand your tough position But I was at your last board meeting because I got calls of some of the disgusting and hate comments They were being made so I came last time first time in 20 years I am an alumni of Woodland high
152school and also Lee school, so I've been here Since I was four years old This is my community. This is my town and I am disgusted I'm disgusted with this school board and I'm disgusted with us being taught at our schools I helped build the Woodland high school. I helped raise money to build the track What I have seen you guys approve and allow this hate speech Emily McDonald has free speech. I support her. My organization, I am chair of the Yolo County Republican Party. We put it through two different attorneys. Nothing that was said in her statement or that's on your recordings was illegal or against the law. Anybody that says it was is a liar and it means they're Unfortunately, I believe the Constitution is longer be no longer being taught at Woodland
153High School or pioneer or in this school district if so these Teachers would understand the Constitution and the right we have to stand up and disagree with somebody's statement For them to turn around and start saying oh, we're going to recall I got news for you you start recalling I'll start a recall I've got over 55,000 emails and an attorney's behind me. We'll go the other direction This is ridiculous. We don't need to be recalling people that have a different opinion I Expect the school board to stand up for what is right Okay, and I do not believe any school board member should be called for recall for stating their own opinion That is my statement and we will be following what's going on at these meetings I have reached out to the Daily Democrat
154and the enterprise we will be monitoring what's being printed Thank you very much for your time. I appreciate your efforts because I know how tough your job is. Thank you Thank you very much. Next, please state your name for the record. Hello, Joanne Bowen, and I support Emily McDonald's and all school members on the board right to free speech. I enjoyed listening to the discussion about the music program. My daughter was in music programs, and I think that's important. I encourage the community and school board to focus on the business of educating woodland children. Thank you. Thank you very much. Next person, please state your name for the record. Hi, my name is Alex Trotter. You've already heard from me today, but I felt like it was important to share my opinion on both topics.
155I was here at the last board meeting. I sent in a voicemail. stating my opinion of the statements being made and I'm a teacher and my students deserve to be safe. They deserve to go into my classroom, go into school and know that they, them whole selves, are able to be themselves inside that classroom and if they are not allowed to, I can't expect them to learn and if I can't expect them to learn, then what's my job? So I fully support the recall if there is one. Trustee McDonald, I'm glad that you're here so you can hear the hurt that you've caused to these students. They deserve to be safe and your comments were unsafe to them. Thank you. Thank you very much. Up next, please state your name for the record. My name
156is Barbara Ryan. I'm a former teacher and a former coach of the Woodland High girls basketball team. I want to go on the record before I get started saying I am against biological males and girls sports. Not because I'm a transphobe, but because I like a level playing field and worked very hard to get Title IX passed. I'm here today to support Emily McDonald and free speech. I have read what she said ten times. Looking for the hate speech. I wish somebody could tell me. The definition of hate speech is abusive or threatening speech. I'm trying to find out who was abused and who was threatened in this room. If you thought it was that hateful, why would you broadcast it? She was stating her opinion on a particular topic. Please remember, it's not hate
157speech if somebody disagrees with you. Finally, somebody pointed out... at the last meeting that there are 1.6 million trans people identifying as transgender in the country. Everybody went, ooh. That seems like a lot, but actually it's four-tenths of 1% of the population of the United States. Now on to student education. Two words I haven't heard. Didn't hear it at the last meeting, so I thought I would just throw that in here since I'm at a school board meeting. There are approximately 10,000 students in the district. Using the four-tenths of one percent number, that works out to 40 students that could conceivably be transgender. That leaves over 9,000 students that aren't. The reality is California is 43rd in the country in math, and we are worried about students filling out two questionnaires. Two 10-year-old students. filling
158out their gender identity, their gender expression, their biological sex, who you're sexually attracted to and romantically attracted to. They're 10. I don't even think they have given any of this a second thought. Sure, there might be some, but are we to work against the 9,000 and something for the benefit of a few? I don't want anybody to feel uncomfortable going to school, but... I'll tell you what, those 10-year-olds that have to fill out this questionnaire are not comfortable because they're 10. And I don't know what this has to do with actual education. Somebody can enlighten me? Three seconds. That's all I have to say. Thank you very much. Next person, please state your name for the record. Hi, my name is Dorta Jensen. I live in Davis. I think this is my third time coming
159over to the Woodland School District Trustee Superintendent meeting, whatever we're supposed to call it. So first of all, I want to talk about the rules and format going on here because I've been to the Davis City Council meeting a lot more and I'm more... Comfortable or I know more about the way they do it and then it seems like you guys here do it a little differently and I'm not sure it works so well or if it's really fair the way you do it So I want to bring that to your attention So regarding clapping by the audience that I'm during public comment. That's not allowed as far as I know over there in the Davis City Council. It's disruptive, it takes away from a neutral atmosphere, everybody should feel safe talking, we don't need,
160you know, attaboy or no I hate you or anything. We just want to be talking in a neutral space and any clapping is disruptive of that. So I don't know if that's part of your rules, but to not do it, but you seem to allow it all the time. As for the response by the trustee, when I was here the last time, I was saying, did you guys teach the Constitution at all? And then when I had finished, one of the trustees said, oh, by the way, she mentioned it, so I'm going to mention, yes, we do teach the Constitution. Over there at the City of Davis, the public comment is only for the public. There are no instant responses by any of the council members, so I don't know why that happened when I
161made my public comment. Also, the agenda organization of tonight of public comment and then response, you know, the thing, the issue regarding the music teachers, and then now public comment and response, the issue regarding Emily McDonald. Well, I mean, I have other things to do. My 87-year-old mother is waiting to have dinner with me. I thought we were going to have just the public comment all in one thing. I would have been done a long time ago, but you guys dragged it out by having the response regarding the music issue, delaying the public comment for the Emily McDonald situation. So I don't know why you do it. Do you change your agenda all the time? Please don't answer me if that's against the rules or the way you're supposed to do it. So I just
162didn't think that was fair. And now you're asking people to stand. I know you said you can sit if you want to, but that's different from the music people making public comment to. So regarding Emily McDonald, I support her personally. I support her original statement. I saw nothing wrong with it. I support free speech in general. There's no such thing as hate speech, according to the Constitution or the Supreme Court, if you guys want to find it. get a lawsuit, it'll take about seven years, a lot of money, a lot of time. The Supreme Court can answer whether there is hate speech or not. Three seconds. In other words, we need discussion, not intimidation. Thank you very much. Your time is up. Next person, please state your name for the record. My name is Carol
163Nielsen. And everyone talks about diversity, and that should extend to diversity of opinion. I pray that Emily MacDonald will stay on the board and represent those of us who feel that schools should be for preparing children for future successful and productive lives. In that respect, I'd like to show you this graph here on Woodland High School. This comes from the California dashboard. And it's a bar graph, and it shows that Woodland High School is low in English language arts. It's very low in mathematics. But what's interesting is the graduation rate is very, very high. Now, that tells me that those diplomas are pretty much worthless. If the kids can't read, they can't do math, how are they going to have a successful life ahead? And so I would like to ask you to keep your
164hands off of the inappropriate sex education for these kids who are confused enough going through their changes and get back to teaching the basics so that they can establish themselves successfully in the future. Thank you. Thank you very much. Next person, please state your name for the record. Echo Camacho, a.k.a. Persephone. Free speech, am I right? The reason so many of you are here in attendance this evening has nothing to do with the education of our children. The reason isn't even something that is appropriate to address here in this forum. We are all here because Emily exercised her right to free speech, and she said something to the effect that trans people don't face issues different from the issues that gay and lesbian community face. She was speaking the truth, because last time I checked,
165homosexuals don't face issues such as gender reassignment, chemical castration. and the true body dysphoria experienced after a person transitions into their new gender. The right of Americans to free speech, the right that some are here to attack today, and the right that makes it possible for a hateful person to create and sustain the Facebook profile called Recall McDonald WJUSD Trustee Area 2 is the very same right, the inherent birthright of Emily McDonald. A coward can hide behind many names, including Recall McDonald. But a person that is comfortable pointing out discrepancies and challenging social misconceptions that are far from normal, well, that is a brave and honest person. Emily has shown more character and more concern for the well-being of our children in one statement than all of the board members in all of their terms
166combined. to try and remove Emily from the board or force her into gender fluidity training, education, for merely speaking the truth no matter how it has been spun is to engage with terrorism, plain and simple. I say shame on those that are behind this recall, and I leave you with two quotes. I urge you to consider them within the context of this particular situation. A lie doesn't become the truth, wrong doesn't become right, and evil doesn't become good just because it's accepted by a majority. And freedom is a fragile thing. It's never more than a generation away from extinction. It has to be fought for and defended by each generation. Lastly, I would urge everyone to not cut off your nose to spite your face. Thank you. Thank you very much. Next person, please state
167your name for the record. My name is Kathy Guerrero, and I'm wondering what's so important on your cell phone over there. You're texting away like you're not having a meeting here. Perhaps we could get your attention. I'm here to support Emily McDonald. I think she's one of the bravest people I know. There are so many people who support you, Emily, and they're afraid to come here. You know why? Because they're afraid of getting canceled. They're afraid that their cars might get scratched. They're afraid of a lot of different things, and I've been told that they don't want to come. They want to leave a message on the phone, possibly. People are afraid to stand up because of the things that are happening. I am so thankful that Emily is standing up against what can happen
168to children who transition medically, what happens to them. There are so many young people now known as detransitioners who are going public with their distress and deep regret over having medically transitioned at a very young age before they really were mature enough to make the decision to have surgery and take the drugs that were. they were taking as a minor. They suffer from very serious conditions like osteoporosis, depression, suicidal ideation, chronic incurable pain, and worst of all, infertility. The lawsuits are piling up against those who did not protect and even encouraged those minors to medicalize. Their voice is getting louder. I would hope this district would not be able to avoid future lawsuits, would be able to avoid future lawsuits like those currently in the courts. That would be... Very poor use of my tax
169dollars, although you would deserve one if anybody became a transgender person and was encouraged because of the policies that this board puts into place. I, for one, am so thankful for Emily McDonald that she's willing to be the lone voice standing up for all children, all children, even the children who need protecting from these ridiculous policies that children don't need to be hearing about until they're in high school. It's ridiculous. I have nothing against transgender people and nothing against homosexuals. I think you need to protect the children. That's what this woman is trying to do. There's a group called Gays Against Groomers. You know what they're doing? They're out there, the same thing that I'm doing, trying to protect children against people like you. Gay people locking arms with people like Moms for Liberty to
170protect children from the very policies that you want to adopt here. I support gay people. I support transgender people. I do not support people like you who want to bring policies into a district that are damaging to young children. Young children don't need to be thinking about the kind of stuff you want to introduce to them through these policies in elementary school. They want to jump rope. They want to play Barbies. They want to build tree forts. This should not be something that young children who will figure this out if they are transgender soon enough. without all these policies being fed into their mind, causing them to question ideologies like this. I got it. Thank you. And thank you, Emily. Your time is up. One. Next person. Please state your name for the record. Hi,
171good evening. My name is Beth. I'm here in support of Trustee McDonald. As other speakers have mentioned, the Woodland School District policies direct teachers and the counseling staff to affirm a student's gender identity by using their new name, the pronouns that the student requests, and letting students use the bathroom of their choice. This process is known as a social transition. While well-intentioned, affirming a student's gender identity or publicly celebrating a student who identifies as transgender, their courage is not a neutral action. This can unintentionally influence students' identity formation. As we know, identity formation is an important psychosocial stage of development for young people between 12 and 25 years old. The role of the school is to foster a tolerant and caring approach to all students and ensure that there's no bullying or hostility towards any
172student. It is not the role of the school to influence identity formation. Social transition is a powerful psychotherapeutic intervention and it should not be carried out without clinical supervision. I am pretty certain there's not a single teacher on any school campus here in Woodland that has a medical qualification or the training to be socially transitioning a child. There is also no right or wrong way to be a boy or girl and no child is born in the wrong body. So why are so many kids in Woodland believing they could be born in the wrong body? We have state policies, AB 1266, that tells teachers and counselors and administrators that they can socially transition a child and keep it secret from their parents. We have curriculum in fifth grade, seventh grade, ninth grade health, as well
173as science classes that teach kids that they could be born in the wrong body. We have told children that it's... It's okay for boys to identify into the girls' sports and to use their locker rooms and to make competition unfair and unsafe for girls. We also have Woodland contracting with CommuniCare Health back in 2021. And as you all know, CommuniCare, since I've already sent an email to all of the trustees and our superintendent, Elevate Queer YOLO offers... all children over 12 in Yolo County free breast binders free penis tucking kits for any child over 12 it's all confidential it's all free and lastly the California healthy kids survey asked kids in 2021-22 if they were trans non-binary but last before I run out of time I want to know why there are no Hispanic families
174speaking to this issue why if 50 of the families in Woodland only speak Spanish at home. We do not have any of this information on the website in Spanish. We do not have any Hispanic families here, and I know this doesn't meet their values. Three seconds. Thank you very much. Next person, please state your name for the record. Yeah, hello, my name is Norman income peace and I was here last time and I'm here in support of Emily McDonald I want to thank her for standing up and being able to state her opinion and Like the last speaker was mentioning. I was also kind of a little Dismayed of not seeing maybe maybe spanish-speaking parents here one of the things that I'm kind of I have a sense that they would not be in agreement
175with, say, what policies would be kind of given in the direction that maybe the district would be going towards. But more than anything... My sense of this meeting today is I am, let me retract to what I had mentioned last time about three groups in the playground, for example. There are students that are maybe in that category of not knowing about their sexuality. There's a group that is kind of oblivious, and then there's the bullies. And what I saw today, towards Trustee McDonnell with some bullying. And I think we lead by example. The bullying of just kind of being able to tell her right to her face, you should resign, you should do this, you should do that, leave. That's bullying. And I feel like we're giving the example to our children. And if that's
176the case, I don't want any part of it. So the reason why I'm here is also like who's defending her the last Group of speakers are defending her but for the most part it was like attack attack attack It is are the people who are saying these things attacking her are they aware of what they're they're practicing They're practicing what they feel is being done to them or to the kids out there in the community They're practicing things that they would not want to happen to their kids, but they're doing it to her I don't think that's that's acceptable And I think what we have to do is we have to re-look at this. I also heard in this meeting before with the music is that we should be giving teachers a chance. When we're
177employing, when we're giving people coming into the district, we should be kind of supporting them. I didn't hear any support for Trustee McDonald from the group that was prior to this last group. I also, we should be working together. I don't see that. So I'm coming here, I'm finishing up by saying this is easily resolved by identifying like we have an awesome country. We cannot allow a few people just to shut us down because we have a different opinion. And again, thank you for stating your opinion. I hope the best for you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Marie, please go to the voicemails. We have one last speaker, Martha Voss. That person here He said everything I'm a substitute teacher. I've been in Woodland School District for I think seven years now and The
178topic I was thinking about when we first came was first of all how beautiful the beginning of the meeting was Reading writing with arithmetic. Excuse me. I'm not very good arithmetic, but The arts I'm not surprised at all, but they've said about the beautiful teachers here and stuff But the topic I wanted to address was confidentiality. Let's don't tell the parents what's happening, right? We have to sign a paper for our kids to take an aspirin, okay? Magically, when my kids became seniors in high school, I got lots of phone calls about not being in school, right? I got to know that because I'm a parent. But the stuff about trying to keep, oh, you want to change your gender? Let's not tell your parents, right? That's nonsense. Thank you very much. Can we please
179go to the voicemails? Thank you for the opportunity for public to make public comment to the board today. I'm calling in today for item G. I am the president of the West Sacramento Democratic Club, and we are aware of dehumanizing comments that trustee Emily McDonald said about the LGBTQ plus community and specifically transgender students at a recent Woodland Joint Unified School District meeting. Since there has been an outcry from the community and a very concerning silence and lack of response from the trustee addressing the extremely harmful comments. The Woodland Joint Unified School Board passed resolution 5523 recognizing lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and intersex. Pride Month in June of 2023. And that includes statements such as all children and youth should be able to attend school in a safe and inclusive environment free from discrimination.
180And board policies prohibit discrimination in its programs and activities based on gender or sexual orientation among other characteristics. The comments by Trustee McDonald seems to violate the resolution the board itself passed. Further, these comments fit in with a broader pattern of increasing hate speech crimes and anti-LGBTQ plus legislation across the country and region. As a club, we strongly condemn Trustee McDonald's remarks and urge the school board to take action to make certain that strong safeguards are in place to ensure that LGBTQ plus students have every available opportunity to find loving support in their school communities. Passing a resolution is not enough if those words are not enacted. We do appreciate hearing the support that was voiced from the other school board trustees for the LGBTQ population. The West Sacramento Democrats stand strongly with our LGBTQ
181plus student population in our region, including in Woodland, and urge all those involved in overseeing their education to take action to create the safe spaces they need to grow and thrive. Thank you. This is Allie Snyder calling regarding item G. I'm calling to support trustee Emily McDonald for her courage and level-headedness. I am calling in regards to item G on the agenda tonight. I am calling in support of board member Emily McDonald. I am so thankful that she is willing to stand up for all children and protect them from the radical gender ideology being introduced to this district. It is not a concept that should be introduced to young children under the age of high school. Children these days don't need more confusion. They need less. I long for the children to be able to
182grow up in the simpler times that I was fortunate enough to experience in my lifetime. Puberty is hard. Emotions rage. Many children are trying to find something that helps them to feel better about what they are going through emotionally and physically. I don't know why anybody would think that suggesting or supporting a thought that a child is born in the wrong body is a solution to anything. It's harmful. When you struggle with identity issues or other mental health issues, the help that needs to be offered to them is emotional support, therapy, not medical. intervention in the form of puberty blockers and surgical procedures that cannot be undone. There are so many young people now known as detransitioners who are going public with their distress and deep regret over having medically transitioned at a very young
183age. before they really were mature enough to make the decision to have surgery and to take the drugs that they were taking as a minor. I, for one, am so thankful that Emily McDonald is willing to be the lone voice in standing up for all children in Woodland and protecting them from the push to radicalize education in this district with gender ideology. My name is Jennifer. I'm an education specialist and calling to comment on item G. of the board meeting tonight. Just wanting to say that the comment made by the trustee regarding the social contagion and transgender ideology affecting girls more than boys is absolutely correct. As an education specialist in middle school, I can say I have had to work with or I've gotten to work with five trans quote unquote students. And I
184will say that four of them had been sexually molested. Four of them were gay. And four of them were girls. And so having direct experience with this, it is not what people think it is. Also, as an ed specialist, laws that are governing gender ideology run counter to federal IEP law. And there will be massive lawsuits coming down the pike, depending on how people handle this. Gender ideology has no business being taught in school. And once you have direct experience of this, I thought it was great until I had direct experience in middle school working with these kids and going, my God, they've been sexually molested. They're gay. And the one who was neither molested or gay was off the charts mentally ill with a long history in the family of that. So anyway, thank
185you for your time. I appreciate it. And, yeah, be careful. You don't get to say you didn't know better. I don't get to, and neither do you. All right. Bye-bye. My name is Sandy. I'm calling regarding Item G on tonight's agenda. I want to state that I am full support of Ms. McDonald, and I think it's atrocious that you want her. to resign or that you'll process. She has a right to her opinion and many of us agree with it. Thank you. My name is Emily. My nephew is a student at Dingle Elementary and I'm calling because I'm deeply concerned by the comments of board member Emily McDonald regarding trans youth. I deeply believe that our school should be a place where all students are welcomed and affirmed. And I think that if board member
186McDonald is not able to support trans youth, she needs to resign her post on the board. And I urge the school district to continue their work supporting all students. I'm calling about item G. I'd like to say that I fully support Trustee McDonald and so does my wife. And so the most of the people that I've talked to, matter of fact, all the people I've talked to, and I'm a Woodlandite, a third generation. Anyway, yeah, I don't know if that has anything to do with it. Maybe it doesn't, but the bottom line is, support her. Thank you. My name is Brian Coward. I'm a father, husband, and a midman resident. I'm on a plane right now, so I apologize if there's a background noise. Um, first I'd like to step my support for the LGBTQ
187plus evolution. Um, the statement made expressing concern about students first to be who they wish because of some societal contagion. Um, think of one state and the man's self-control as their 65th. In the same way we all accept the special freedom that we're living in. . The board has failed to hold the district accountable for these violations. I would recommend at the very least, amending the DFA and including the new school as the members of the new school. We also need to formally request the CO2 again be amended to revalidate screenings for the school and finally to the planned textile school. Finally, I expect the accountability of the district staff and board members accountable for everything mentioned above. I'm a Woodland parent. My daughter's going into eighth grade at Douglas. I've been trying to listen
188to all sides here and I have some thoughts because I keep hearing people ask, what did Emily McDonald do? What did she say that was hateful? If you're asking that sincerely, please hear me out. The idea she's invoking is that kids can't know if they're gay or trans, so they must be getting indoctrinated into becoming those. Consider the idea that trans kids do it. Gay kids do it. Did you know that you liked boys? Did you know that you liked girls? Did you know you were a boy? Did you know you were a girl when you were a kid? Before I had my first crush on a girl, I knew I was a boy. Adults will tell you they knew they were trans when they were kids, so they must have been a disgust for
189years. She's used by transgender people. She's also not trans herself. what this is about, your identity. This is Agenda Item G. My name is Emma Vinici-Mount. I am 12 years old, and I am about to start my seventh grade year at Lee Middle School. I wish I could be here today. However, I have soccer practice. I wanted to make sure I was heard because I was upset by the comments made by Trustee Emily McDonald during the June 15th board meeting. As students, we already stressed enough about grades, our peers, events at homes, even school, to worry about being accepted for who we are. There have been recent studies that have shown we need to feel safe in order to be able to learn proficiently. By trustee Emily McDonald, we're dangerous to the youth in this
190community. Recent studies have shown that 50% of non-binary and transgender youth in the U.S. have seriously considered suicide. Oftentimes, when a student gets to a dark place, they think of themselves, and no one might know what they're going through. I imagine that one day I could be working on a project with a classmate, and the next, they aren't at school to help me. Imagine that later we all find out that they committed suicide. That'd be sad. Things that were in the room as she spoke were harms and shocks. In the last board meeting, individuals said that she had the First Amendment and the right to freedom of speech. However, she represents a group of people and should speak in their best interest. She spoke about her own beliefs, used her power, and ultimately put the
191youth in this community at risk. In the hate speech that she gave, she claimed that lesbian and gay men had nothing in common with the trans community because some transgender people take hormones. However, we are overlooking the fact that not only the trans community has parallels with lesbian and gay men, but that they have similarities with the entire human race, one of which being the right to live and be who are with dignity. Respectfully, I believe that McDonald's should be recalled because of her reckless statements to the public. Thank you for your time. My name is Jenna Myers, and I am a teacher at Lee Middle School. Though I am not able to be here tonight, I want to make sure that all of our students and families know that the fight to protect all
192students continues. To Trustee McDonald, it is our responsibility to ensure that all students feel safe in our schools. Our LGBTQIA students matter and deserve the best, and that includes a school board who loves and supports them. Thank you. I'm leaving a message for the board meeting tonight relative to agenda item G, public comment to the board. My name is Monica Nolte. I'm a Woodland resident and mother of a five-year-old who's an incoming kindergartner at Tafoya this year. I'm calling to voice my support for trans youth, and I'm calling to support my disapproval for bigotry and discrimination in our schools. Our schools should be a place where every child feels safe. If you're not going to discriminate on the basis of race or religion, there's no reason to separate children on the basis of gender or
193to disbelieve them when they tell you what their gender is or they explore their gender identity. So I'd like our schools to be a safe, supportive place for people of all genders. Thank you very much. Hi, this is Nina Walker. I have a comment for Item G. As you know, we've seen staggering growth in gender medical treatment to children, including surgery that could leave young patients unable to have children of their own. The American Academy of Pediatrics is putting the brakes on such radical medical procedures. Its president states that they don't push medical treatment or surgery, but rather, for the vast majority of children, they recommend the opposite. Last July, the United Kingdom closed its national clinic for kids. The shutdown came after an independent review found shaky scientific evidence for pushing hormones, puberty blockers,
194and surgery. There has been a tendency here in the U.S. to dismiss these findings. We are behind and partly blinded by profits. For medically altered children become patients for life for the medical and drug industries. Affected parents are raising alarm. After witnessing how gender drugs and operations have harmed their children, doctors are also speaking out. We would be wise to listen. As you know, children are easily influenced and incentivized. They cannot grasp the long-term effects of medical treatment that result in infertility and loss of sexual function. But by adulthood, they understand and have regrets. Lastly, as a teacher, I recommend stick with science. Girls are born with XX chromosomes and boys are born with XY. No medical procedure can change what we are born as, that is, our biological sex. Some gender dress and behaviors
195may be a social construct, and that's okay. But biological sex is not a social construct. Therefore, we should not be teaching our students that they can change their sex or choose their sex. It's not true. They will be confused. Thank you very much for the public comments this evening I Would like to go on to the next item which is item H superintendents report. Thank you. Thank you everyone for coming to our board meeting and I'm making your public comment. I want to just share with everyone in the community that we are excited for the school new school year and we're going to stay focused on what needs to be done to get our schools opened. So and that includes making sure that all our students feel safe that our staff feel safe and that
196we focus on the business of the district. Our human resources department is very busy right now making sure that we're filling out filling our last higher positions. business department is working closely with our transportation department making sure that our buses are ready to go that we're doing routes that our bus drivers are getting trained and buses are being cleaned and all the exciting buzz going around in the transportation department our M&O department our maintenance and operations staff are out our school sites making sure they're doing completing their deep cleaning and making sure that there's a last minute repairs and checking our our fire Alarms and all the things needed to be so that our facilities are ready for our students our food service department is also making sure they're doing inventory making sure they're placing
197orders and Making sure that our nutrition program is ready for our students our technology department making sure our systems are working updating our backing up our student information system and educational student staff is Working on preparing staff development. We're gonna have staff development on next week starting on Wednesday our new our teachers returned for summer staff development Starting on Wednesday. So we're working on that We also had our principals here last week for three days receiving staff development and they're back at their sites Getting ready for the opening of school and I know that our parents are busy out Shopping for new clothes backpacks new shoes and getting for in the opening of the school year so my message to everyone is that we're gonna be ready to embrace everyone with open arms, welcome all
198our students, making sure that our staff receive the training they need to make sure that we have clean, safe, and welcoming environments for all our students. And we're going to stay focused on our four goals that have been directed by the board. We have a lot of work to do, and we need to work on not being distracted with different... THINGS HAPPENING IN OUR ENVIRONMENT AND OUR COMMUNITY REGARDING ISSUES THAT ARE COMING UP SO WITH THAT I'M GOING TO GO AHEAD AND PASS IT ON TO TRUSTEE THAT'S INSPECT REPORT THANK YOU VERY MUCH SUPERINTENDENT NEXT ITEM ON THE AGENDA IS ITEM NUMBER TWO REPORT FROM CSEA NO REPORT TODAY THANK YOU VERY MUCH ITEM THREE REPORT FROM WEA Good evening Board of Trustees Superintendent Ortega Lampkin cabinet and community. Thank you for this time on
199the agenda My name is Becca Bernard I teach science at Douglas middle school and I am honored to begin serving my term as the president of the Woodland Education Association I want to take a moment before I begin my report to thank all of the students and band supporters who showed up tonight to use this public forum as a way to shine light on their concerns for how we can improve our schools and students, for students and staff alike. Although under frustrating circumstances, it warms my heart to watch some of my own students use their voices to stand up for what they believe in. Our outgoing WEA president has previously requested multiple times that our district implement exit surveys for staff to gather their reasoning for leaving our district in hopes that it will allow
200us to be introspective on how we can improve our own district and therefore improve both teacher and student retention. So I hope that's something that we can start collaborating on to continue to implement or to begin to implement. While we are all sad to say goodbye to the freedom and relaxation of summer, there is something so exciting about getting ready for the first day of school. As a teacher, I get the same feelings of butterflies and anticipation towards a new school year as I did when I was a student. New shoes, colorful new outfits, crisp folders and notebooks, extra sharp Ticonderoga pencils, shiny new flare pens if you're a teacher, but most importantly, dozens of bright-eyed new faces looking up at me from their seats. These are the things that we should be looking forward
201to. But sadly, we are being distracted by the taint of hatred coming from a small group of people who are committed to dividing our community and dehumanizing our students and staff. Woodland students deserve the best. They deserve quality educators. They deserve support and resources for their social, emotional, and academic growth. And they deserve safe schools. We are incredibly grateful for the partnership and support from Superintendent Ortega-Lampkin and that she is committed to ensuring a safe space and welcoming community and environment for all staffs and students and respecting the diversity of their identities. Your message to our students was heard and appreciated. WEA would like to echo to our students who might be listening that we embrace each of you just the way you are. We want each of you to be happy and proud and
202to know that you are safe to grow in all of our schools. I loved how you said that. That was beautiful. We want each of you to be happy. Excuse me. There is no space for hatred in our community, and we will not stand by to allow our students to feel unsafe. This is why the WEA Executive Board took a unanimous vote to call for the censure and resignation of Trustee McDonald and to support a recall campaign in the event that she does not step down. Promoting love and acceptance creates a better learning experience for all of our students. We cannot sit by and forget that Trustee McDonald chose to abuse her platform to spread hate and ignorance. She created an unsafe, hostile environment and even life-threatening space for our trans students, students, community, and
203staff members here in Woodland. This is why she should resign from the board and allow someone else to serve who is willing to advocate for all of our students in Woodland We look forward to the LGBTQ plus trainings. The district will be providing for our staff during our upcoming professional development days Thank You Elodia to prepare prepare Steve Excuse me to prepare teachers and staff on how to better support and advocate for our LGBTQ plus students and staff If any educators should feel threatened or unsafe in their work environment here in Woodland, please reach out to your union site reps or myself, as well as your principals, and we will help connect you with the proper resources to ensure your safety. Thank you, and this concludes my report. Thank you very much. All right, reports
204from board members. Would anybody like to go first this evening? I have a report. Trustee McDonald. I'd like to apologize for missing the June 28th meeting. June 28th happened to be the Eid, which is comparable in significance to the Muslim community to Christmas. It's the most important holiday of their year, and it happens to be the busiest day of the year for me. And I did come to the meeting, but I got here at 8.45. The meeting was over. Everyone was gone. However, I did listen. To the meeting and I took note of the comments. There were a total of 36 comments of the 36 comments 24 to borrow from one written commenter had passionate and informed Disagreement with the statement that I made at the June 15th meeting In addition to the 24 comments
205at the June 28th meeting, I received seven written comments disagreeing with my June 15th statement. And if I could summarize. THEM IN ALL OF THE COMMENTS, I THINK IT WOULD BE THAT I DO NOT SUPPORT ALL STUDENTS. AND THERE WAS ALSO NOT ALL THE COMMENTS, BUT SOME OF THEM. AND AGAIN, THAT SENTIMENT WAS ECHOED TODAY THAT MY STATEMENT ON JUNE 15TH ACTUALLY PROVIDED AN AVENUE FOR PERSECUTION OF THE LGBTQ COMMUNITY. As a consequence and in response to this, I'm just letting my fellow trustees know that I intend to submit a yellow sheet requesting that we discuss as a board. Expanding our website to describe the protections that are in place for the LGBT community both at the state level And also at the district level. I'm not particularly familiar with what exists at the state
206level. I know there are THERE ARE SEVERAL LAWS. AT THE DISTRICT LEVEL, OBVIOUSLY WE HAVE BOARD POLICIES AND THEN THE RECENT ADDITION OF LGBTQ TO THE L CAP AND THE TRAINING PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT. IF YOU READ THE 2022 REPORT FOR HEALTHY CALIFORNIA KIDS, About 30% of seventh graders identify as something other than straight, which means that this topic would be relevant to roughly a third of the families in our district. So it seems like it would be worth discussing. So I look forward to that. Thank you. Any other board members wish to give a report this evening? Trustee Rodriguez. Yes, I have a statement to read actually first from President Villagrana and he says that he had initially planned to make today's meeting and he had understood that the agenda planning team had agreed to cancel
207the meeting and he made plans with his family and this is reason why he is not in attendance and that's from President Villagrana. I just wanted to thank especially all the students who came today and who voiced their opinion and who used their voice to stand up for what was important for them. I want to thank the community for coming and using public comment to be able to address the board. I think that it's very healthy when we're able to give opportunity to the community to address us and especially for our students. I want them to know that when they come and they address us and they share their opinions with us that it matters, that it absolutely matters because we do consider everything that is said. So that may not result in exactly a
208particular result that any particular individuals interested in but we do take into consideration what is said during public comment. We take it seriously and it matters especially to our to our students who are brave enough to come up and share their pain. I know I wasn't that brave when I was younger and I just like to you know generally address the public. And just to remind folks that we passed the LGBTQ pride resolution. previously and that you know the overwhelming majority of this board stands firmly with our LGBTQ students families and community in having the expectation that all students have the right to be and feel safe anywhere in our district and that this board is committed to the non-discriminatory equitable and respectful treatment of all of our student community and that includes the LGBTQ
209plus student community. and we will also be bringing forth some resolutions at our next meeting to help support that notion. Thank you. Thank you very much. Anybody else? Ms. Fowler, all right. I just wanted to state from my report that I am very appreciative of the public comments this evening and all of the topics. I stand in support of our resolution for the LGBT community and I want to say that this is a free space for all individuals to come forward and share their views. But again, we want to make sure that everyone feels welcome in this space and that we all try to maintain our accountability for our speech. So that is something that I want to make sure that we keep in mind. With that said I'm gonna go ahead and open it
210up to item number five information Anybody would like to give any board committee updates All right, nothing to report Superintendent anything on that item No, okay All right, so we're gonna be scheduling the meetings for the year So you should be receiving based on your committee updates with calendar invites in the next week or two Thank you very much. We're going to go on to item I, facilities and finance. This is an action item. And I can send you an email, Christina. Can you send me an invite to one of your VAPA meetings? I would really like to attend one of those. Thanks. Okay. Next item, action. Approve resolution 1-24 authorizing the delegation of authority to contract the construction work for the measure-wide construction projects in 2023. Move to approve resolution Trustee McDonald I don't
211have a problem with this resolution, but I would like to ask that we add this agenda item to as a standing agenda item so that if Mr. Wiley does approve a contract or there is some action that happens on measure why between board meetings he can simply make make an announcement and keep the board apprised it would then be in the minutes and be I think easier to keep track of timing and when and how things happened and also just keep the board apprised of contracts that are being approved. Anything over $25,000 is coming our way for approval. So that's our way of accountability, correct, sir That is correct eventually it would but in the essence of timely matter we need to enter into our contract or services during some measure-wide project That it would
212hold up the project that mr Wiley would have the authority to sign and move forward on this and you would get the update as Justin McDonald was just asking for the next board meeting So so if I understand it we it would not be coming to us for approval He would he would sign the contract without board approval So I'm just asking that it be a standing agenda item. So the board knows what construction work is happening What we're trying to do is accelerate projects Keep things moving in the effort of or the spirit of expediency. That's what this Resolution helps us with but again, we would continue to keep the board and informed on what we approved Using this resolution. All right. So she is that a motion miss McDonald? Well, can I make
213a friendly amendment to oh, it's not okay I motion to approve resolution 1-24 provided that measure Y becomes a standing agenda item and any actions that are taken on measure Y are briefly reported to the board. Can I make some comment? So I think what you're asking, Emily, is not necessarily, I can hear my... other fellow trustees chime in. It's almost like a request to the agenda committee. Planning committee. Yeah. Right, to do that. I don't know that this is like the place to do that because it's talking about what the next agenda is going to be. Can we vote as a board though to add it as an agenda item? We can, right? You can add items to the agenda with board approval. Absolutely, you can add items to the agenda for board approval.
214For example, when we had COVID, it was a standing agenda item that we hit every time we had a meeting. So if it gives you solace for us to have something like this on an agenda item, I don't have a problem with it because if Lewis doesn't have anything to update us, it'll just be an item and he'll say nothing to report and we'll just move on. Yeah I guess I just think that that's an issue better dealt with with the. Absolutely. Agenda committee that that's how it is. All right. Is there a second for Trustee McDonald's motion. The approval of the resolution with a standing. Yes I second. All right. All of those in favor say aye. Aye. All of those opposed. You're a no. And I'm a no because I think that this
215is related to agenda planning. There are four of us here present. Our chair is not here. President is not here. So I think that this is something that needs to be discussed. I do see your point of adding it as a standing item, but I think that this is worthy of a further discussion. Move to approve resolution. Second. No, so we don't have we wouldn't have enough votes to pass this item What is the urgency of passing this particular item at the moment? What would be the repercussions of passing it now? It just looks now versus it just lost the ability for Lewis and Jim to work on getting projects going for a measure why? So the whole purpose of this was to allow Lewis to continue to get into contracts and not having to
216wait So that we don't get stalled and get the momentum going So that would be the impact that just slows down And he just was asking for the board to approve him going ahead and going on contracts and not having to come to every contract that's over $15,000 for the board. Emily, can I ask a question? Yes, ma'am. So Emily, I just want to move the needle so that we can get things done and move quickly on Measure Y. Is this something that, I'm sorry, I'm really trying to gather my words. Why is this a linchpin on approving the resolution getting that agenda item? otherwise, we have no way of Having regular updates and so the board is not going to know where we are with respect to measure why in a public in a
217In a public forum, that's not true. This item can be added to the agenda We're just asking that you allow for this this topic in your request to be discussed by the agenda planning committee right, but but If we approve the resolution you can you'll bring it back. We're not gonna have a board meeting until August It just which is that we do business Right if we approve it today versus later If you approve it today then Lewis and Jim will have the ability to start getting into contracts and I happen to wait till the 10th So now if between now and the 10th they need to get into a contract they won't be able to they have to wait to the 10th and then they'll have to wait each were meaning And that just
218slows down Projects. So I mean I say I mean I don't I definitely don't want to do that. I won't slow down the projects on measure why I think either way we can prove it with Emily's. I don't know that you can bring back a motion that's already been dead. Can we. You can motion for things as many times just because we've already voted on it and it failed. We can bring it back up. Is that correct. And either way it's still a consideration that goes through the agenda planning committee. We can pass it with what Emily is saying. But if there's a reason for us not to do it then I guess we wouldn't do it. So if we if if having the having your amendment added lets us pass it now so they
219can conduct business let's just do it. Emily are you on the measure why committee. So would you be willing to join the measure why committee so that when we have committee updates you can present that information? Absolutely so again move to approve the resolution second How often does a measure why committee meet? We actually haven't started meeting yet. We're still doing a lot of the planning. So we haven't formally started our updates. Is this the Oversight Committee, the Measure White Oversight? The Bond Oversight Committee. I imagine that's what you're referring to, yeah. Yeah, so I appreciate, Trustee Zavala, your... You know wanting to talk about this with the agenda planning committee would it be alright if we approve? approve it for this month conditionally so that mr. Wiley and His co-worker there can Move ahead
220with the contracts that they need And then we can discuss again as a board, you know, I've done many many many Construction projects and the contracts always come before the board I'm not I'm not you know, and I don't mind You know Having mr. Riley signed the contracts but as a board I I definitely want to know what's happening on the regular You know if contracts are being signed in between board meetings I don't think there's anything wrong with wanting to hear about that at the upcoming board meeting Another option for the board to consider is to go to if you were to pass this Take action and pass this resolution for Justin McDonald to turn in a yellow sheet to request another item to get updates for the planning agenda planning committee to review.
221That's another avenue. Just offering that as another option for tonight's discussion. I mean I think Trustee McDonald's offering her amendment for a month's time. I think for the sake of letting them get to work as quickly as possible, it's what we want. I think we just pass it in that manner. You know, we talk about trying to avoid surprises, and I think that you had an opportunity to speak to others. about your idea of adding this item to an agenda. So to me, it's caught me by surprise. And I'm not criticizing you. What I'm doing is asking that you try to collaborate with others on the board when you bring an initiative or an idea. That way, when you bring something forward, you at least know that someone else is aware because you can talk
222to two other people. You know, we're not caught by surprise or we've checked with the superintendent on something, you know. You had an opportunity to even talk to our board president about it. even though he wasn't able to come today. And you could have gotten a sense of where he would have been on this, and you could have reported back to us. So there is ways of us being able to come to a consensus if you do the work ahead of time. So that's just my advice to you. I am going to support this because I don't want anything to get stalled. I worked on Measure Y. I know I put the work in along with a lot of other people to get this money. So I don't want to stall it. But I also
223feel like I'm being threatened to vote for this because if I don't, the money's not, the contract isn't going to get signed. So I am going to say that. Okay, so we have a second, right? Emily second my motion which is still on the table to approve the resolution as is as is but she's adding she's winding up that I put the resolution out to approve the resolution she seconded it she paused to figure out when the team meets found out that they are not meeting even as a member of the committee has the right to meet with Lewis and the team and still come back and report what's going on. So that's an opportunity. And Emily to support you in your endeavor as a school board trustee I will find all of my material
224from CSBA leadership and board boot camp and I will share that information with you at the next meeting just so that you can have a roadmap. Thank you. All right, so we have a motion we have a second and it's to approve the contract as is correct All right, all those in favor say aye aye all those opposed None opposed motion passes with full in favor three absent. All right moving on to the next item. Thank you very much All right item J information request for future agenda items any board members have anything that they would like to show that they will be submitting a yellow sheet for All right hearing no one ITEM K, INFORMATION CLOSING COMMENTS. ANYONE HAVE ANYTHING TO SAY BEFORE WE WRAP UP? SUPERINTENDENT. I'M GOING TO BE GOING CAMPING PRETTY
225SOON. I'M A LITTLE WORRIED. THEY WANT ME TO DO THE ROPES. BUT I'LL LET YOU KNOW. HOPEFULLY I'LL BE BACK IN ONE PIECE ON THE 10th. ABSOLUTELY. TAKE SOME BUG SPRAY. YEAH. MAKE SURE YOUR INSURANCE IS GOOD. YES. ITEM L, THE END TIME OF OUR NEXT SCHEDULED REGULAR BOARD MEETING IS SET FOR THURSDAY, AUGUST 10TH. CLOSED SESSION STARTS AT 5. GENERAL OPEN SESSION STARTS AT 6 P.M. WITH THAT IN MIND, OUR MEETING STANDS ADJOURNED AT 9.